"Since we are assured that the all-wise Creator has observed the most exact proportions of number, weight and measure in the make of all things, the most likely way therefore to get any insight into the nature of those parts of the Creation which come within our observation must in all reason be to number, weigh and measure." (Stephen Hales, "Vegetable Staticks", 1961)
"Science is the reduction of the bewildering diversity of unique events to manageable uniformity within one of a number of symbol systems, and technology is the art of using these symbol systems so as to control and organize unique events. Scientific observation is always a viewing of things through the refracting medium of a symbol system, and technological praxis is always handling of things in ways that some symbol system has dictated. Education in science and technology is essentially education on the symbol level." (Aldous L Huxley, "Essay", Daedalus, 1962)
"Observation, reason, and experiment make up what we call the scientific method. (Richard Feynman, "Mainly mechanics, radiation, and heat", 1963)
"Science is a matter of disinterested observation, patient ratiocination within some system of logically correlated concepts. In real-life conflicts between reason and passion the issue is uncertain. Passion and prejudice are always able to mobilize their forces more rapidly and press the attack with greater fury; but in the long run (and often, of course, too late) enlightened self-interest may rouse itself, launch a counterattack and win the day for reason." (Aldous L Huxley, "Literature and Science", 1963)
"[…] science should be visualized as progressing from problem to problem - to problems of ever increasing depth. […] Problems crop up especially when we are disappointed in our expectations, or when our theories involve us in difficulties, in contradictions; and these may arise either within a theory, or between two different theories, or as the result of a clash between our theories and our observations. […] Thus science starts from problems, and not from observations; though observations may give rise to a problem, especially if they are unexpected; that is to say, if they clash with our expectations or theories." (Karl R Popper, "Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge", 1963)
"Scientific discovery, or the formulation of scientific theory, starts in with the unvarnished and unembroidered evidence of the senses. It starts with simple observation - simple, unbiased, unprejudiced, naive, or innocent observation - and out of this sensory evidence, embodied in the form of simple propositions or declarations of fact, generalizations will grow up and take shape, almost as if some process of crystallization or condensation were taking place. Out of a disorderly array of facts, an orderly theory, an orderly general statement, will somehow emerge." (Sir Peter B Medawar, "Is the Scientific Paper Fraudulent?", The Saturday Review, 1964)
"One of the chief motivations behind the attempt to defend a distinction between theoretical and observational terms has been the desire to explain how a theory can be tested against the data of experience, and how one theory can be said to ‘account for the facts’ better than another; that is, to give a precise characterization of the idea, almost universally accepted in modern times, that the sciences are ‘based on experience’, that they are ‘empirical’." (Dudley Shapere, "Philosophical Problems of Natural Science", 1965)
"What indeed is mathematics? This question, if asked in earnest, has no answer, not a satisfactory one; only part answers and observations can be attempted." (Salomon Bochner, "The Role of Mathematics in the Rise of Science", 1966)
"The question of the origin of life is essentially speculative. We have to construct, by straightforward thinking on the basis of very few factual observations, a plausible and self-consistent picture of a process which must have occurred before any of the forms which are known to us in the fossil record could have existed." (John D Bernal, "The Origin of Life", 1967)
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." (Sir Peter B Medawar, "Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought", 1969)
"The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a 'complete' theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality." (Jan Tinbergen, "The Use of Models: Experience," 1969)
"[…] the link between observation and formulation is one of the most difficult and crucial in the scientific enterprise. It is the process of interpreting our theory or, as some say, of ‘operationalizing our concepts’. Our creations in the world of possibility must be fitted in the world of probability; in Kant’s epigram, ‘Concepts without precepts are empty’. It is also the process of relating our observations to theory; to finish the epigram, ‘Precepts without concepts are blind’." (Scott Greer, "The Logic of Social Inquiry", 1969)
"One of the chief motivations behind the attempt to defend a distinction between theoretical and observational terms has been the desire to explain how a theory can be tested against the data of experience, and how one theory can be said to ‘account for the facts’ better than another; that is, to give a precise characterization of the idea, almost universally accepted in modern times, that the sciences are ‘based on experience’, that they are ‘empirical’." (Dudley Shapere, "Philosophical Problems of Natural Science", 1965)
"What indeed is mathematics? This question, if asked in earnest, has no answer, not a satisfactory one; only part answers and observations can be attempted." (Salomon Bochner, "The Role of Mathematics in the Rise of Science", 1966)
"The question of the origin of life is essentially speculative. We have to construct, by straightforward thinking on the basis of very few factual observations, a plausible and self-consistent picture of a process which must have occurred before any of the forms which are known to us in the fossil record could have existed." (John D Bernal, "The Origin of Life", 1967)
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." (Sir Peter B Medawar, "Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought", 1969)
"The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a 'complete' theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality." (Jan Tinbergen, "The Use of Models: Experience," 1969)
"[…] the link between observation and formulation is one of the most difficult and crucial in the scientific enterprise. It is the process of interpreting our theory or, as some say, of ‘operationalizing our concepts’. Our creations in the world of possibility must be fitted in the world of probability; in Kant’s epigram, ‘Concepts without precepts are empty’. It is also the process of relating our observations to theory; to finish the epigram, ‘Precepts without concepts are blind’." (Scott Greer, "The Logic of Social Inquiry", 1969)
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