“The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.”

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 17.

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Benjamin Disraeli 306
British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Pri… 1804–1881

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“The very possibility of the science of mathematics seems an insoluble contradiction.”

Source: Science and Hypothesis (1901), Ch. I: On the Nature of Mathematical Reasoning (1905) Tr. https://books.google.com/books?id=5nQSAAAAYAAJ George Bruce Halstead
Context: The very possibility of the science of mathematics seems an insoluble contradiction. If this science is deductive only in appearance, whence does it derive that perfect rigor no one dreams of doubting? If, on the contrary, all the propositions it enunciates can be deduced one from another by the rules of formal logic, why is not mathematics reduced to an immense tautology? The syllogism can teach us nothing essentially new, and, if everything is to spring from the principle of identity, everything should be capable of being reduced to it. Shall we then admit that the enunciations of all those theorems which fill so many volumes are nothing but devious ways of saying A is A!... Does the mathematical method proceed from particular to the general, and, if so, how can it be called deductive?... If we refuse to admit these consequences, it must be conceded that mathematical reasoning has of itself a sort of creative virtue and consequently differs from a syllogism.<!--pp.5-6

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“Science is no stranger to controversy. The pursuit of discovery, of knowledge, is often uncomfortable and disconcerting.”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

Source: To question genetic intelligence is not racism (2007)
Context: Science is no stranger to controversy. The pursuit of discovery, of knowledge, is often uncomfortable and disconcerting. I have never been one to shy away from stating what I believe to be the truth, however difficult it might prove to be. This has, at times, got me in hot water.
Rarely more so than right now, where I find myself at the centre of a storm of criticism. I can understand much of this reaction. For if I said what I was quoted as saying, then I can only admit that I am bewildered by it. To those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.
I have always fiercely defended the position that we should base our view of the world on the state of our knowledge, on fact, and not on what we would like it to be. This is why genetics is so important. For it will lead us to answers to many of the big and difficult questions that have troubled people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
But those answers may not be easy, for, as I know all too well, genetics can be cruel. My own son may be one of its victims. Warm and perceptive at the age of 37, Rufus cannot lead an independent life because of schizophrenia, lacking the ability to engage in day-to-day activities.

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“The science of mine and thine—the science of justice—is the science of all human rights; of all a man’s rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist

Section I, p. 5
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter I. The Science of Justice.

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