(Eiseley, Loren C., [Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania], "TheFirmament of Time," The Scientific Book Club: London, 1960, p.5)"A scientist commonly professes to base his beliefs on observations, not theories.Theories, it is said, are useful in suggesting new ideas and new lines of investigation for the experimenter; but "hard facts" are the only proper ground for conclusion. I have never come across anyone who carries this profession into practice--certainly not the hard-headed experimentalist, who is the more swayed by his theories because he is lessaccustomed to scrutinise them. Observation is not sufficient. We do not believe our eyesunless we are first convinced that what they appear to tell us is credible. It is better toadmit frankly that theory has, and is entitled to have, an important share in determining belief."(Eddington A., "The Expanding Universe," Penguin: Harmondsworth, Middlesex UK,1940, p.25)"Medawar admonishes the young to formulate hypotheses but not to identify with them.'The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is trueor false'. Voltaire put it more strongly: 'In fact, no opinion should be held with fervour. No one holds with fervour that 7 x 8 = 56 because it can be shown to be the case. Fervour is only necessary in commending an opinion which is doubtful or demonstrably false'. Iam told that when anybody contradicted Einstein, he thought it over, and if he was foundwrong he was delighted, because he felt that he had escaped an error."(Max Perutz, "Is Science Necessary?" (p.196), in a review he wrote of Peter Medawar's book "Advice to a Young Scientist")"The scientific establishment bears a grisly resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition. Either you accept the rules and attitudes and beliefs promulgated by the 'papacy' (for whichread, perhaps, the Royal Society or the Royal College of Physicians), or face a dreadfulretribution. We will not actually burn you at the stake, because that sanction, unhappily, isnow no longer available under our milksop laws. But we will make damned sure that youare a dead duck in our trade."(Gould, Donald [former editor of New Scientist], "Letting poetry loose in the laboratory," New Scientist, 29 August 1992, p.51)"There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma inscience. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion,to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.""As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never to be lost, and science can never regress."(J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, Manhatten Project, Life Magazine 10/10/1949)"What has kept design outside the scientific mainstream these last 130 years is theabsence of precise methods for distinguishing intelligently caused objects fromunintelligently caused ones. For design to be a fruitful scientific theory, scientists have to be sure they can reliably determine whether something is designed. Johannes Kepler, for instance, thought the craters on the moon were intelligently designed by moon dwellers.
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