On Generalization (1960-1969)

"How can a modern anthropologist embark upon a generalization with any hope of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion? By thinking of the organizational ideas that are present in any society as a mathematical pattern." (Edmund R Leach, "Rethinking Anthropology", 1961)

"Just as the eye sees details that are not there if they fit in with the sense of the picture, or overlooks them if they make no sense, so also very little inherent certainty will suffice to secure the highest scientific value to an alleged fact, if only it fits in with a great scientific generalization, while the most stubborn facts will be set aside if there is no place for them in the established framework of science." (Michael Polanyi, "Personal Knowledge", 1962)

"One often hears that successive theories grow ever closer to, or approximate more and more closely to, the truth. Apparently, generalizations like that refer not to the puzzle-solutions and the concrete predictions derived from a theory but rather to its ontology, to the match, that is, between the entities with which the theory populates nature and what is ‘really there’." (Thomas S Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", 1962)

"The transition from a paradigm to a new one from which a new tradition of normal science can emerge is far from a cumulative process, one achieved by an articulation or extension of the old paradigm. Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes some of the field’s most elementary theoretical generalizations as well as many of its paradigm methods and applications." (Thomas S Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", 1962)

"There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation." (Richard Feynman, "Mainly mechanics, radiation, and heat", 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)

"The fact that theories are not subject to absolute and final proof has led to a serious vulgar misapprehension. Theory is contrasted with fact as if the two had no relationship or were antitheses: 'Evolution is only a theory, not a fact'. Of course, theories are not facts. They are generalizations about facts and explanations of facts, based on and tested by facts. As such they may be just as certain - merit just as much confidence - as what are popularly termed 'facts'. Belief that the sun will rise tomorrow is the confident application of a generalization. The theory that life has evolved is founded on much more evidence than supports the generalization that the sun rises every day. In the vernacular, we are justified in calling both 'facts'." (George G Simpson, Life: An Introduction to Biology, 1965)

"Theories are generalizations and unifications, and as such they cannot logically follow only from our experiences of a few particular events. Indeed we often generalize from a single event, just as a dog does who, having once seen a cat in a certain driveway, looks eagerly around whenever he passes that place in future. Evidently this latter activity is equivalent to testing the theory [...] that 'there is always a cat in that driveway'." (John T Davies, The Scientific Approach, 1965)