Scientific Goals Quotes

Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions. It differs, however, from most other branches of human activity in that not only are the pathways of scientific thought determined by the presuppositions of the scientists but their goals are the testing and revision of old presuppositions and the creation of new.

I think the scientific goals and the technical challenges were the two things that equally motivated me.

The biological task of science is to provide the fully developed human individual with as perfect a means of orientating himself as possible. No other scientific ideal can be realised, and any other must be meaningless.

Prediction is certainly a valuable goal in science, but not the only one. Explanation is also important, and there are plenty of sciences that do a lot of explaining and not much predicting.

We would like to carry out 100 percent, or maybe more, of our scientific program; I would like to devote some of my spare time toward extra scientific work.

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. If one's faith requires one to abandon or ignore natural laws, well, that person is going to have trouble reconciling religion and science. Otherwise, there is no any conflict.

To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. ... Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.

I feel we must all exert ourselves to the utmost to see that the ideals and hopes held by Alfred Nobel, whom we commemorate today, do not fail from lack of purpose on the part of scientists.