Alvin M. Weinberg (1915–2006) American nuclear physicist
Interview http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-1/text/wbgbar.htm by Bill Cabage and Carolyn Krause for the ORNL Review (April 1995).
Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 1 : Lost words, forgotten worlds
Alvin M. Weinberg (1915–2006) American nuclear physicist
Interview http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-1/text/wbgbar.htm by Bill Cabage and Carolyn Krause for the ORNL Review (April 1995).
“Scientific inquiry shouldn't stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)
Section II: “What Is Progress?”, p. 48 http://books.google.com/books?id=MW8SAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA48&dq=%22All+that+progressives+ask%22 <br class="br">1910s, The New Freedom (1913)
Alvin M. Weinberg (1915–2006) American nuclear physicist
Two scientific activities are equally valid if they achieve results that are true. Now, how do you decide which activity is more valuable? The question of value is the basic question that the scientific administrator asks so that decisions can be made about funding priorities. <br class="br"> Interview http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-1/text/wbgbar.htm by Bill Cabage and Carolyn Krause for the ORNL Review (April 1995).
Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher
Source: The unity of science, 1934/1995, p. 22
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
The Doctrine of Necessity Examined (1892)
Context: When I have asked thinking men what reason they had to believe that every fact in the universe is precisely determined by law, the first answer has usually been that the proposition is a "presupposition " or postulate of scientific reasoning. Well, if that is the best that can be said for it, the belief is doomed. Suppose it be " postulated " : that does not make it true, nor so much as afford the slightest rational motive for yielding it any credence. It is as if a man should come to borrow money, and when asked for his security, should reply he "postulated " the loan. To "postulate" a proposition is no more than to hope it is true. There are, indeed, practical emergencies in which we act upon assumptions of certain propositions as true, because if they are not so, it can make no difference how we act. But all such propositions I take to be hypotheses of individual facts. For it is manifest that no universal principle can in its universality be compromised in a special case or can be requisite for the validity of any ordinary inference.
“Women need chocolate. It's a scientific fact.”
Sophie Kinsella book Remember Me?
Source: Remember Me?
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian philosopher and statesman who was the first Vice President and the second President of India
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy