"[Philosophy] has tried to combine acceptance of the conclusions of scientific inquiry as to the natural world with the acceptance of doctrines about the nature of mind and knowledge which originated before there was such a thing as systematic experimental inquiry. Between the two there is an inherent incompatibility." (John Dewey, "Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action", 1929)
"A Weltanschauung [worldview] is an intellectual construction which solves all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypothesis, which, accordingly, leaves no question unanswered and in which everything that interests us finds its fixed place [...] the worldview of science already departs noticeably from our definition. It is true that it too assumes the uniformity of the explanation of the universe; but it does so only as a programme, the fulfillment of which is relegated to the future." Sigmund Freud, "New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis", 1932)
"The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science." (Albert Einstein & Leopold Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics", 1938)
"Science is the organised attempt of mankind to discover how things work as causal systems. The scientific attitude of mind is an interest in such questions. It can be contrasted with other attitudes, which have different interests; for instance the magical, which attempts to make things work not as material systems but as immaterial forces which can be controlled by spells; or the religious, which is interested in the world as revealing the nature of God." (Conrad H Waddington, "The Scientific Attitude", 1941)
"Only by the analysis and interpretation of observations as they are made, and the examination of the larger implications of the results, is one in a satisfactory position to pose new experimental and theoretical questions of the greatest significance." (John A Wheeler, "Elementary Particle Physics", American Scientist, 1947)
"An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer." (Max Plank, "The Meaning and Limits of Exact Science", Science, 1949)
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