1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), Moral of the work
Context: It is one of our most exciting discoveries that local discovery leads to a complex of further discoveries. Corollary to this we find that we no sooner get a problem solved than we are overwhelmed with a multiplicity of additional problems in a most beautiful payoff of heretofore unknown, previously unrecognized, and as-yet unsolved problems.
“The truly awesome intellectuals in our history have not merely made discoveries; they have woven variegated, but firm, tapestries of comprehensive coverage. The tapestries have various fates: Most burn or unravel in the footsteps of time and the fires of later discovery. But their glory lies in their integrity as unified structures of great complexity and broad implication.”
"Men of the Thirty-Third Division: An Essay on Integrity", p. 125
Eight Little Piggies (1993)
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Stephen Jay Gould 274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002Related quotes
"Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media" Speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anaheim, California (25 January 1999)
Context: Science is the most exciting and sustained enterprise of discovery in the history of our species. It is the great adventure of our time. We live today in an era of discovery that far outshadows the discoveries of the New World five hundred years ago.
The First Law. All human behavioral traits are heritable.
The Second Law. The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes.
The Third Law. A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.
Kindle locations 8005, 8010.
The Blank Slate (2002)
Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 275
Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 1
Context: It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don’t, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions.
“None of the great discoveries was made by a "specialist" or a "researcher."”
Fischerisms (1944)
Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 178 ; Renoir's remark to Vollard, criticizing the so-called 'new' discoveries by Impressionism.