On Knowledge (1960-1969)

"Any pattern of activity in a network, regarded as consistent by some observer, is a system, Certain groups of observers, who share a common body of knowledge, and subscribe to a particular discipline, like 'physics' or 'biology' (in terms of which they pose hypotheses about the network), will pick out substantially the same systems. On the other hand, observers belonging to different groups will not agree about the activity which is a system." (Gordon Pask, "The Natural History of Networks", 1960)

"The most important maxim for data analysis to heed, and one which many statisticians seem to have shunned is this: ‘Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.’ Data analysis must progress by approximate answers, at best, since its knowledge of what the problem really is will at best be approximate." (John W Tukey, "The Future of Data Analysis", Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1962)

"Incomplete knowledge must be considered as perfectly normal in probability theory; we might even say that, if we knew all the circumstances of a phenomenon, there would be no place for probability, and we would know the outcome with certainty." (Félix E Borel, Probability and Certainty", 1963)

"When a science approaches the frontiers of its knowledge, it seeks refuge in allegory or in analogy." (Erwin Chargaff, "Essays on Nucleic Acids", 1963)

"In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modem physics has found that certain things can never be ‘known’ with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities." (Richard P Feynman, "The Feynman Lectures on Physics", 1964)

"A model is a useful (and often indispensable) framework on which to organize our knowledge about a phenomenon. […] It must not be overlooked that the quantitative consequences of any model can be no more reliable than the a priori agreement between the assumptions of the model and the known facts about the real phenomenon. When the model is known to diverge significantly from the facts, it is self-deceiving to claim quantitative usefulness for it by appeal to agreement between a prediction of the model and observation." (John R Philip, 1966)

"It is a commonplace of modern technology that there is a high measure of certainty that problems have solutions before there is knowledge of how they are to be solved." (John K Galbraith, "The New Industrial State", 1967)

"The aim of science is not so much to search for truth, or even truths, as to classify our knowledge and to establish relations between observable phenomena in order to be able to predict the future in a certain measure and to explain the sequence of phenomena in relation to ourselves." (Pierre L du Noüy, "Between Knowing and Believing", 1967)

"It [knowledge] is clearly related to information, which we can now measure; and an economist especially is tempted to regard knowledge as a kind of capital structure, corresponding to information as an income flow. Knowledge, that is to say, is some kind of improbable structure or stock made up essentially of patterns - that is, improbable arrangements, and the more improbable the arrangements, we might suppose, the more knowledge there is." (Kenneth E Boulding, "Beyond Economics: Essays on Society", 1968)

"Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality. They are more or less isomorphic to transformations of reality. The transformational structures of which knowledge consists are not copies of the transformations in reality; they are simply possible isomorphic models among which experience can enable us to choose. Knowledge, then, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate." (Jean Piaget, "Genetic Epistemology", 1968)

"Scientific knowledge is not created solely by the piecemeal mining of discrete facts by uniformly accurate and reliable individual scientific investigations. The process of criticism and evaluation, of analysis and synthesis, are essential to the whole system. It is impossible for each one of us to be continually aware of all that is going on around us, so that we can immediately decide the significance of every new paper that is published. The job of making such judgments must therefore be delegated to the best and wisest among us, who speak, not with their own personal voices, but on behalf of the whole community of Science. […] It is impossible for the consensus - public knowledge - to be voiced at all, unless it is channeled through the minds of selected persons, and restated in their words for all to hear." (John M Ziman, "Public Knowledge: An Essay Concerning the Social Dimension of Science", 1968)

"The idea of knowledge as an improbable structure is still a good place to start. Knowledge, however, has a dimension which goes beyond that of mere information or improbability. This is a dimension of significance which is very hard to reduce to quantitative form. Two knowledge structures might be equally improbable but one might be much more significant than the other." (Kenneth E Boulding, "Beyond Economics: Essays on Society", 1968)

"Discovery always carries an honorific connotation. It is the stamp of approval on a finding of lasting value. Many laws and theories have come and gone in the history of science, but they are not spoken of as discoveries. […] Theories are especially precarious, as this century profoundly testifies. World views can and do often change. Despite these difficulties, it is still true that to count as a discovery a finding must be of at least relatively permanent value, as shown by its inclusion in the generally accepted body of scientific knowledge." (Richard J. Blackwell, "Discovery in the Physical Sciences", 1969)

"It is not enough to observe, experiment, theorize, calculate and communicate; we must also argue, criticize, debate, expound, summarize, and otherwise transform the information that we have obtained individually into reliable, well established, public knowledge." (John M Ziman, "Information, Communication, Knowledge", Nature Vol. 224 (5217), 1969)

"Models constitute a framework or a skeleton and the flesh and blood will have to be added by a lot of common sense and knowledge of details."(Jan Tinbergen, "The Use of Models: Experience," 1969)

"The 'flow of information' through human communication channels is enormous. So far no theory exists, to our knowledge, which attributes any sort of unambiguous measure to this 'flow'." (Anatol Rapoport, "Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist", 1969)