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"Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by
means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into
as thorough-going an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the
attempt at a posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of
conceptualization. Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should
be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain
necessary."
"I maintain that cosmic religiousness is the strongest and
most noble driving force of scientific research."
"Why does this applied science, which saves work and makes life easier,
bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not
yet learned to make sensible use of it."
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are
far greater."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight
from wonder."
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain,
and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. "
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday
thinking."
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,
would it?"
"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes,
where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we
enter the realm of Art and Science"
"When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex
is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of
the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is
impossible. Neverthess, noone doubts that we are confronted with a causal
connection whose causal components are in the main known to us.
Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact perdiction
because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of
order in nature."
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place
is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action
of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined
to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish
addressed to a Supernatural Being." [Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to
a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray.
"In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they
that dwell therein and the motives that have led them hither. Many take to
science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is
their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the
satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who
have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely
utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the
people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage
would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both
present and past times, left inside"
"I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the
measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even
when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even
if I am not looking at it."
"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these
aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the
sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards
freedom." |