“Science is the one human activity that is totally progressive.”
The Realm of the Nebulae (1936)
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Edwin Hubble 7
American astronomer 1889–1953Related quotes
Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations"
Context: The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.
“Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information; it is a creative human activity.”
“Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left.”
It appears in multiple anti-vaccination books, all by Trung Nguyen and a co-writer, circa 2018. In September 2021 it is echoed everywhere, including medical-journal articles (on various subjects), with no source given. Right above the Aldous Huxley "quote", these books quote a much earlier anti-vax author. Coincidentally, that author says (elsewhere in his book) this:
Let us admire all-powerful Nature, which is not so easily brought into this serious and lasting disorder by our perverse intrusions; for otherwise, there would hardly have remained a human being alive.
Misattributed
Source: Christian Charles Schieferdecker, in Dr. C. G. G. Nittinger's EVILS OF VACCINATION https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dr_C_G_G_Nittinger_s_Evils_of_Vaccinatio/6CUaAAAAYAAJ, 1856, p.40
Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992)
Context: Technological competition ignites total war, which means it is not possible to contain the effects of a new technology to a limited sphere of human activity... What we need to consider about the computer has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning, and how, in conjunction with television, it undermines the old idea of school.
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education
“Observation is a passive science, experimentation an active science.”
Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865)
The Philosophy of Atheism (1916)