“A few centuries ago… the indigenous and often primitive architectural forms of that time had become suited to local climate through a long process of trial and error.”
The Owner Built Home: A How-to-do-it Book (1972)
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Ken Kern 48
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House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Hearing on Coronavirus (March 5, 2020)

“Time is the primitive form of the stream of consciousness.”
Introduction<!-- p. 5 -->
Space—Time—Matter (1952)
Context: Time is the primitive form of the stream of consciousness.... If we project ourselves outside the stream of consciousness and represent its content as an object, it becomes an event happening in time, the separate stages of which stand to one another in the relations of earlier and later.

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.

Speech delivered at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York (September 5, 1901).
1900s

"'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (1965)
Context: Now he had form and substance.
He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades ago. But there it was, and there he was, a very definitely imposing personality. In certain circles — middle-class circles — it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful.

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving
Jeanne W. Ross (2003) Creating a Strategic IT Architecture Competency: Learning in Stages. MIT Sloan Working Paper No. 4314-03, April 2003. Abstract

Dissent, Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393 (1932).
Judicial opinions
Context: Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right... This is commonly true even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation. But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this court has often overruled its earlier decisions. The court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error, so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function.

Source: 1930s, "Empirical Sociology" (1931), p. 322