James Lovelock Quotes

Modern science's defense against self-delusion relies upon a spirit of open and critical inquiry. This, though hardly infallible, ostensibly uncovers errors and thereby proceeds towards objective truth

A true conservative is on the side of science.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.

The ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment... not authority.

Far too many scientists, including my good friend Richard Dawkins, present science as the truth and present it as factually correct. And actually, of course, that clearly isn't true.

Science is the most reliable guide in life.

The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

Science requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories - much of the debugging has to be done by others.

Hubris and science are incompatible.

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

There is no room for political, personal or religious ideologies in science.

I love science. I hate supposition, superstition, exaggeration and falsified data. Show me the research, show me the results, show me the conclusions - and then show me some qualified peer reviews of all that.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists.

A scientist... must accept the results of experiment, and nothing but the results of experiment.

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

It's easy to see the faults in people I know; it's hardest to see the good. Especially when the good isn't there.

Scientists are always skeptics.

Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

Unlike scientism, science in the true sense of the word is open to unbiased investigation of any existing phenomena.