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The Art of Scientific Investigation QUOTES

The Art of Scientific Investigation QUOTES

1 " The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

2 " Cultivate an intellectual habit of subordinating one's opinions and wishes to objective evidence and a reverence for things as they really are. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

3 " It is the care we bestow on apparently trifling, unatractive and very troublesome minutiae which determines the result. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

4 " The most effective experimenters are usually those who give much thought to the problem beforehand and resolve it into crucial questions and then give much thought to designing experiments to answer the questions. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

5 " IN MANY respects the research worker resembles the pioneer. He explores the frontiers of knowledge and requires many of the same attributes: enterprise and initiative, readiness to face difficulties and overcome them with his own resourcefulness and ingenuity, perseverance, a spirit of adventure, a certain dissatisfaction with well-known territory and prevailing ideas, and an eagerness to try his own judgment. Probably "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

6 " Writing of Charles Darwin, his son said: " Everybody notices as a fact an exception when it is striking and frequent, but he had a special instinct for arresting an exception. A point apparently slight and unconnected with his present work is passed over by many a man almost unconsciously with some half considered explanation, which is in fact no explanation. It was just these things that he seized on to make a start from. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

7 " Probably the student who is reflective and critical is at a disadvantage in accumulating information as compared with the student who accepts without question all he is told. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation

8 " A danger constantly to be guarded against is that as soon as one formulates an hypothesis, parental aflfection tends to influence observations, interpretation and judgment; "wishful thinking" is likely to start unconsciously. Claude Bernard said : " Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill-prepared for making discoveries; they also make poor observations. "

― , The Art of Scientific Investigation