“Science doesn't purvey absolute truth.”

— Isaac Asimov

Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas (21 October 1988); transcript http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/pdfs/woi%20asimov2.pdf (pages 5-6)
General sources
Context: Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 22, 2020. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Science doesn't purvey absolute truth." by Isaac Asimov?

Isaac Asimov 303

American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston Uni… 1920–1992

Related quotes

“Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth”

Eric Temple Bell (1883–1960) mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the United States for most of his li…

Source: Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science (1938), p. 291
Context: Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth; some of its rivals do. That science is in some respects inhuman may be the secret of its success in alleviating human misery and mitigating human stupidity.

“Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself.”

Arthur Koestler book The Act of Creation

The Act of Creation, London, (1970) p. 253.
Context: Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrant nude differs from a nude by Manet.