Evidence-Based Conclusions Quotes

I don't believe in conspiracy theories. I'm just a cold-blooded investigator.

There are no enemies in science, professor. Only phenomena to study.

So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.

Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

One scientist will interpret data one way, another in another way. One scientist may feel that an experiment is valid, another feels it's invalid. That's why scientists have discussions and put forward their opinions in conferences and papers.

Don't listen to experts.

The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.

History is an accumulative science, gradually gathering truth through the steady and plodding efforts of countless practitioners turning out countless monographs

In science, each new result, sometimes quite surprising, heralds a step forward and allows one to discard some hypotheses, even though one or two of these might have been highly favored.

No matter how beautiful the theory, one irritating fact can dismiss the entire formulism, so it has to be proven.

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. Amen! If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.

A free press is one where it's okay to state the conclusion you're led to by the evidence. One reason I'm in hot water is because my colleagues and I at NOW didn't play by the conventional rules of Beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news.

Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.

Nor must we forget that in science there are no final truths.

Some of the best theorizing comes after collecting data because then you become aware of another reality.

In fact, scientific results are a careful attempt to objectively measure reality, and although they may be refined over time, they are always our best hope of getting at the truth.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

In science, "fact" can only mean confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.

In science , all conclusions are provisional, subject to new evidence and better arguments, the very antithesis of religious faith.

In Quakerism, your understanding of God is revised in light of your own experience, while in research science, you revise your model in light of data from experiments.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

Those in science perform research, have it reviewed by their peers, publish the results, and believe the answer should be obvious.