Scientific Thinking Quotes

“One of the great challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you're right, but not enough about the subject, to know you're wrong.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“The evils of life spring partly from natural causes, partly from men’s hostility to each other. In former times, competition and war were necessary for the securing of food, which could only be obtained by the victors. Now, owing to the mastery of natural forces which science has begun to give, there would be more comfort and happiness for all if all devoted themselves to the conquest of Nature rather than of each other. The representation of Nature as a friend, and sometimes as even an ally in our struggles with other men, obscures the true position of man in the world, and diverts his energies from the pursuit of scientific power, which is the only fight that can bring long-continued well-being to the human race.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“She was told she had typhoid fever. Right away, as I still do today, I looked up the disease in medical books and read all about it.”
― Richard P. Feynman, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character

“Or consider another field where one can use games to implant an understanding of basic principles. All scientific thinking is in terms of probability. The old eternal verities are merely a high degree of likeliness; the immutable laws of nature are just statistical averages. How does one get these profoundly unobvious notions into children’s heads? By playing roulette with them, by spinning coins and drawing lots. By teaching them all kinds of games with cards and boards and dice.”
― Aldous Huxley, Island