Loading...
Breadcrumb_light image

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.

Related Quotes

Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old.

Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently, his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior.

A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science.

When on board H.M.S. 'Beagle,' as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America.

But Geology carries the day: it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating, on first arriving, what the rocks may be; I often mentally cry out 3 to 1 Tertiary against primitive; but the latter have hitherto won all the bets.