“Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.”
The Nature of Natural History (1950)
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Marston Bates 1
American entomologist 1906–1974Related quotes

“Education, I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another.”
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Manitoba: Clandeboye, p. 168.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

Neil Strauss (March 29, 2000) "A brain comes full circle: Rock musician Maynard James Keenan, of the bands Tool and A Perfect Circle", The New York Times, p. B3.
Source: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, 1981, p. 152 as cited in: R.L. McCown (2001) "Learning to bridge the gap between science-based decision support and the practice of farming". In: Aust. J. Agric. Res., Vol 52, p. 560-561

“The teaching of mathematics,” p. 71-72
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968)
Context: My purpose here is to denounce an idea which seems to be dangerous and false. … Revolutionary trade unionists and orthodox communists are at one in considering everything that is purely theoretical as bourgeois. … The culture of a socialist society would be a synthesis of theory and practice; but to synthesize is not the same as to confuse together; it is only contraries that can be synthesized. … Marx’s principal glory is to have rescued the study of societies not only from Utopianism but also and at the same time from empiricism. … Humanity cannot progress by importing into theoretical study the processes of blind routine and haphazard experiment by which production has so long been dominated. … The true relation between theory and application only appears when theoretical research has been purged of all empiricism.
On his research process in “"a cautionary tale" part II: Interview with Playwright Christopher Oscar Peña” http://www.theaterspeak.org/2013/07/part-ii-of-cautionary-tale-at-flea.html (Theaterspeak; 2013 Jul 15)

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)