Mordechai Ben-Ari - Collected Quotes

"A scientific theory is a concise and coherent set of concepts, claims, and laws (frequently expressed mathematically) that can be used to precisely and accurately explain and predict natural phenomena." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"A theory should include a mechanism that explains how its concepts, claims, and laws arise from lower-level theories." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"Imaginary numbers are not imaginary and the theory of complex numbers is no more complex than the theory of real numbers." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005) 

"It is clear today that modern science developed when people stopped debating metaphysical questions about the world and instead concerned themselves with the discovery of laws that were primarily mathematical." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"It is important to distinguish between the scientific concept of law as a generalization, and the social concept of law which is prescriptive and normative. A desire for tolerance in respecting the laws of different social systems must not lead us into the mistake of attributing volition to the entities of science or relativism to scientific laws." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"Just because people doing science are embedded in a particular social and cultural milieu, it doesn’t follow that science is not universal." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"The charm of our studies, the enchantment of science, is that, everywhere and always, we can give the justification of our principles and the proof of our discoveries." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"Unfortunately, the universe does not come with an instructor’s manual and technical support is as hard to get as it is for some software packages." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)

"Why was progress in computing technology so fast compared with the lack of progress in space travel? The reason is very simple: computing technology is only now approaching scientific limits such as quantum uncertainty and the speed of light, while space technology has already run into its limits that derive from the basic principles of physics and chemistry." (Mordechai Ben-Ari, "Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science", 2005)