Raymond Cattell: Quotes about science

Raymond Cattell was British-American psychologist. Explore interesting quotes on science.

Raymond Cattell: 20 quotes 6 likes

“Of course, science lives by confusing theories, but what were accepted as 'theories' even by the many professional psychologists and psychiatrists were very poor limitations of what physical scientists call a theory.”

Raymond Cattell

Source: The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 16 (1966 edition)

Science

“A taxonomy of abilities, like a taxonomy anywhere else in science, is apt to strike a certain type of impatient student as a gratuitous orgy of pedantry. Doubtless, compulsions to intellectual tidiness express themselves prematurely at times, and excessively at others, but a good descriptive taxonomy, as Darwin found in developing his theory, and as Newton found in the work of Kepler, is the mother of laws and theories.”

Raymond Cattell

Raymond Cattell (1987), Intelligence: Its Structure, Growth and Action. p. 61

Law , Science , Time

“The danger is not only that politicians and private institutions with axes to grind will find tame or corruptible social scientists to support their positions. The greater danger which recent experiences both here and abroad, e. g., Lysenkoism in Russia, have revealed is that partisans primarily political in interest and intention either accidentally or deliberately infiltrate the ranks of science. In the case of the Lysenko episode, and comparable events in Nazi Germany, the disturbing realization to scientists was that the exile or death of those ejected from their academic positions followed what seemed initially to be severe technical criticism by fellow scientists, but was actually politically staged.”

Raymond Cattell

Cattell (1972). A New Morality from Science: Beyondism, p. 38.

Death , Support , Science