20 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Max Plank's Inspiration to Go Into Science
My original decision to devote myself to science was a direct result of the discovery which has never ceased to fill me with enthusiasm since my early youth—the comprehension of the far from obvious fact that the laws of human reasoning coincide with the laws governing the sequences of the impressions we receive from the world about us; that, therefore, pure reasoning can enable man to gain an insight into the mechanism of the latter. In this connection, it is of paramount importance that t...The realization that the world can be understood rationally.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Doubt as a Scientific Virtue
I would now like to turn to a third value that science has. It is a little more indirect, but not much. The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn't now the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he as a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount impor...Folksonomies: science scientific virtues
Folksonomies: science scientific virtues
The importance of doubt, and a lack of absolute certainty, in science, which is non-authoritarian.