“One important idea is that science is a means whereby learning is achieved, not by mere theoretical speculation on the one hand, nor by the undirected accumulation of practical facts on the other, but rather by a motivated iteration between theory and practice.”

Source: Science and Statistics (1976), p. 791

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George E. P. Box 14
British statistician 1919–2013

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“The evil influence of the supposed inconsistency of theory and practice upon speculative science”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)
Context: The evil influence of the supposed inconsistency of theory and practice upon speculative science, although much less conspicuous than it was in the ancient and middle ages, is still occasionally to be traced. This it is which opposes the mutual communication of ideas between men of science and men of practice, and which leads scientific men sometimes to employ, on problems that can only be regarded as ingenious mathematical exercises, much time and mental exertion that would be better bestowed on questions having some connection with the arts, and sometimes to state the results of really important investigations on practical subjects in a form too abstruse for ordinary use; so that the benefit which might be derived from their application is for years lost to the public; and valuable practical principles which might have been anticipated by reasoning, are left to be discovered by slow and costly experience.<!--pp. 175

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling photo

“The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) German philosopher (idealism)

Die Scheu vor der Spekulation, das angebliche Forteilen vom bloß Theoretischen zum Praktischen, bewirkt im Handeln notwendig die gleiche Flachheit wie im Wissen. Das Studium einer streng theoretischen Philosophie macht uns am unmittelbarsten mit Ideen vertraut, und nur Ideen geben dem Handeln Nachdruck und sittliche Bedeutung.
Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studiums ( Seventh Lecture http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Schelling,+Friedrich+Wilhelm+Joseph/Vorlesungen+%C3%BCber+die+Methode+des+akademischen+Studiums/7.+%C3%9Cber+einige+%C3%A4u%C3%9Fere+Gegens%C3%A4tze+der+Philosophie,+vornehmlich+den+der+positiven+Wissenschaften), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings sämmtliche Werke, V, 1859, p. 277 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?q1=%22nur%20Ideen%20geben%22;id=uva.x002624295;view=1up;seq=301;start=1;sz=10;page=search;num=277.
On University Studies (1803)

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“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Attributed in Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile - Things that Gain From Disorder (2012), p. 213.
The earliest known appearance of this quote in print is Walter J. Savitch, Pascal: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming (1984), where it is attributed as a "remark overheard at a computer science conference". It circulated as an anonymous saying for more than ten years before attributions to Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut and Yogi Berra began to appear (and later still to various others).
Disputed, Misattributed

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”

Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut (1953–1994) Dutch computer scientist

The earliest known appearance in print of this quote is Benjamin Brewster in the October 1881 - June 1882 issue of "The Yale Literary Magazine." Brewster asks, "What does his lucid explanation amount to but this, that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is?" See page 202. https://books.google.com/books?id=iJ9MAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&vq=%22no+difference%22#v=onepage&q&f=false It has also been attributed by Doug Rosenberg and Matt Stephens (2007) Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UMLTheory and Practice p. xxvii as well as Walter J. Savitch, Pascal: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming (1984), where it is attributed as a "remark overheard at a computer science conference". It circulated as an anonymous saying for more than ten years before attributions to van de Snepscheut and Yogi Berra began to appear (and later still to various others).
Misattributed

Christian Doppler photo

“There have been applied sciences throughout the ages. … However this so-called practice was not much more than paper in nearly all of these cases, and the various applied sciences were only lacking a bagatelle, namely proper scientific practice. The applied sciences show the application of theoretic doctrines in existing events; but that is precisely what it does, it merely shows. Whereas the scientific practice autonomously puts to use these theories.”

Christian Doppler (1803–1853) mathematician, physicist

in his review of Joseph Beskiba's textbook, published in the Österreichische Blätter für Literatur und Kunst (September 7, 1844), as quoted by [Peter Schuster, Moving the stars: Christian Doppler, his life, his works and principle, and the world after, Living edition, 2005, 3901585052, 78]

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“Another evil, and one of the worst which arises from the separation of theoretical and practical knowledge, is the fact that a large number of persons”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)
Context: Another evil, and one of the worst which arises from the separation of theoretical and practical knowledge, is the fact that a large number of persons, possessed of an inventive turn of mind and of considerable skill in the manual operations of practical mechanics, are destitute of that knowledge of scientific principles which is requisite to prevent their being misled by their own ingenuity. Such men too often spend their money, waste their lives, and it may be lose their reason in the vain pursuits of visionary inventions, of which a moderate amount of theoretical knowledge would be sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy; and for want of such knowledge, many a man who might have been a useful and happy member of society, becomes a being than whom it would be hard to find anything more miserable.
The number of those unhappy persons — to judge from the patent-lists, and from some of the mechanical journals — must be much greater than is generally believed.<!--p. 176

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling photo

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