Science Quotes
Scientists, semiscientists, and pseudoscientists
As time went on, a man looking at the net result of the normal research effort of many astronomers could observe that astronomy's complexity was increasing far more rapidly than its accuracy and that a discrepancy corrected in one place was likely to show up in another.
Discussions concerning the supposed supremacy of one species over another have, since the late 1960s, centred on such issues as intensive factory farming, blood sports (such as fox hunting and bullfighting), and the increasingly debunked practice of animal experimentation for biomedical research. In his landmark 1975 book Animal Liberation, bioethicist Peter Singer defines speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species”. The concept, however, dates back at least to the 18th century, when Jeremy Bentham, a committed vegetarian and the father of modern utilitarianism, reasoned that: “The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny… A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational… animal than an infant of a day, or a week… The question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk? But… can they suffer?”
The phrase "not even wrong" describes any argument that purports to be scientific but fails at some fundamental level, usually in that it contains a terminal logical fallacy or it cannot be falsified by experiment (i.e., tested with the possibility of being rejected), or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world. The phrase is generally attributed to theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking.[1][2] Rudolf Peierls documents an instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong'."[3] This is also often quoted as "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong," or "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!" in Pauli's native German. Peierls remarks that quite a few apocryphal stories of this kind have been circulated and mentions that he listed only the ones personally vouched for by him. He also quotes another example when Pauli replied to Lev Landau, "What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not."
Hanlon's razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways including "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,"[1][2] or "Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding."
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others. Dunning and Kruger have postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in those of low ability, and external misperception in those of high ability: "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.
The First Scientist; this place in history belongs to little-known Greek philosopher Anaximander. According to many accounts, Anaximander was the first to suggest that the Earth floats in space; to put forth the notion that all living creatures are descended from a common ancestor; and that - heaven forbid - meteorological occurrences were not the product of the gods.
As time went on, a man looking at the net result of the normal research effort of many astronomers could observe that astronomy's complexity was increasing far more rapidly than its accuracy and that a discrepancy corrected in one place was likely to show up in another.
Discussions concerning the supposed supremacy of one species over another have, since the late 1960s, centred on such issues as intensive factory farming, blood sports (such as fox hunting and bullfighting), and the increasingly debunked practice of animal experimentation for biomedical research. In his landmark 1975 book Animal Liberation, bioethicist Peter Singer defines speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species”. The concept, however, dates back at least to the 18th century, when Jeremy Bentham, a committed vegetarian and the father of modern utilitarianism, reasoned that: “The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny… A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational… animal than an infant of a day, or a week… The question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk? But… can they suffer?”
Scientists, semiscientists, and pseudoscientists
