James W. Prescott (1930) American psychologist
"Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (1975)
Does not appear to be from any of his books or cited in a biography. A Google Books search shows that the oldest book citing "physics is like sex" is Scary Monsters and Bright Ideas (2000) by science broadcaster Robyn Williams. On p. 44, this book claims: "Einstein said, 'You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother'. Richard Feynman added, 'Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it'." Given that Einstein didn't really say the former, it's likely that Feynman didn't really say the latter.
Disputed and/or attributed
Variant: Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
James W. Prescott (1930) American psychologist
"Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (1975)
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
From an alleged Letter of to his Minister of the Interior on the Poor Laws. Pub. in The Press, Feb. 1, 1868.
Attributed
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
The Architecture of Theories (1891)
Hannah Gadsby (1978) Australian comedian
Youtube: 'So You Think You're Funny' winner at the Press launch of the Gilded Balloon's programme for the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORUdvdGC8Q&feature=PlayList&p=95BEE1BC92B7F8BB&index=0&playnext=1
Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time
Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 1
Context: Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory.
Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist
Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII
Anbumani Ramadoss (1968) Indian politician
On the protests against sex education in India, as quoted in " The great Indian sex debate http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6928326.stm", BBC News (20 August 2007)
Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher
The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)
Ronald Fisher book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
Preface, p. ix.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)