
“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”
Source: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
James M. McPherson. "Revisionist Historians" https://web.archive.org/web/20040623155609/http://historians.org/Perspectives/Issues/2003/0309/0309pre1.cfm (September 2003), Perspectives, American Historical Association.
2000s
“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”
Source: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
"Violence in the media." Canadian Forum. Volume 56, 1976, p. 9
1970s
Natural selection from the genetical standpoint. Australian Journal of Science 22, 16-17, 1959.
1950s
The Historian's Craft, pg.43
Assessments and Anticipations, "Prognostications" (1929)
“Science is a quest for understanding.”
Beautiful Minds (2010)
Context: Science is a quest for understanding. A search for truth seems to me to be full of pitfalls. We all have different understandings of what truth is, and we'll each believe, or we are in danger of each believing, that our truth is the one and only absolute truth, which is why I say it's full of pitfalls. I think a search for understanding is much more serviceable to humankind, and is a sufficiently ambitious goal of itself.