"Accordingly there are two main types of science, exact science [...] and empirical science [...] seeking laws which are generalizations from particular experiences and are verifiable (or, more strictly, 'probabilities') only by observation and experiment." (Errol E Harris, "Hypothesis and Perception: The Roots of Scientific Method", 1970)
"[...] in probability theory we are faced with situations in which our intuition or some physical experiments we have carried out suggest certain results. Intuition and experience lead us to an assignment of probabilities to events. As far as the mathematics is concerned, any assignment of probabilities will do, subject to the rules of mathematical consistency." (Robert Ash, "Basic probability theory", 1970)
"In relation to any experiment we may speak of this hypothesis as the null hypothesis," and it should be noted that the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis." (Sir Ronald A Fisher, "The Design of Experiments", 1971)
"[…] no isolated experiment, however significant in itself, can suffice for the experimental demonstration of any natural phenomenon; for the ‘one chance in a million’ will undoubtedly occur, with no less and no more than its appropriate frequency, however surprised we may be that it should occur to us." (Sir Ronald A Fisher, "The Design of Experiments", 1971)
"Science consists simply of the formulation and testing of hypotheses based on observational evidence; experiments are important where applicable, but their function is merely to simplify observation by imposing controlled conditions." (Henry L Batten, "Evolution of the Earth", 1971)
"Statistical procedure and experimental design are only two different aspects of the same whole, and that whole is the logical requirements of the complete process of adding to natural knowledge by experimentation." (Sir Ronald A Fisher, "The Design of Experiments", 1971)
"[...] it seems self-evident that mathematics is not likely to be much help in discovering laws of nature. If a mathematician wants to make a contribution on this (and I admit it is the highest) level, he will have to master so much experimental material and train himself to think in a way so different from the one he has been accustomed to that he will, in effect, cease to be a mathematician." (Mark Kac, "On Applying Mathematics: Reflections and Examples", Quarterly of Applied Mathematics, 1972)
"In moving from conjecture to experimental data, (D), experiments must be designed which make best use of the experimenter's current state of knowledge and which best illuminate his conjecture. In moving from data to modified conjecture, (A), data must be analyzed so as to accurately present information in a manner which is readily understood by the experimenter." (George E P Box & George C Tjao, "Bayesian Inference in Statistical Analysis", 1973)
"Statistical methods are tools of scientific investigation. Scientific investigation is a controlled learning process in which various aspects of a problem are illuminated as the study proceeds. It can be thought of as a major iteration within which secondary iterations occur. The major iteration is that in which a tentative conjecture suggests an experiment, appropriate analysis of the data so generated leads to a modified conjecture, and this in turn leads to a new experiment, and so on." (George E P Box & George C Tjao, "Bayesian Inference in Statistical Analysis", 1973)
"An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or the other." (Robert M Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", 1974)
"A hypothesis is empirical or scientific only if it can be tested by experience. […] A hypothesis or theory which cannot be, at least in principle, falsified by empirical observations and experiments does not belong to the realm of science." (Francisco J Ayala, "Biological Evolution: Natural Selection or Random Walk", American Scientist, 1974)
"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limit. […] In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits." (John C Lilly, "The Human Biocomputer", 1974)
"Mathematical statistics does not only study procedures for analysing experimental findings but also elaborates methods for taking decisions under conditions of uncertainty, the uncertainty being such as is characterized by statistical stability." (Yakov Khurgin, "Did You Say Mathematics?", 1974)
"The point is that every experiment involves an error, the magnitude of which is not known beforehand and it varies from one experiment to another. For this reason, no matter what finite number of experiments have been carried out, the arithmetic mean of the values obtained will contain an error. Of course, if the experiments are conducted under identical conditions and the errors are random errors, then the error of the mean will diminish as the number of experiments is increased, but it cannot be reduced to zero for a finite number of experiments. […] The choice of entities for an experiment must be perfectly random, so that even an apparently inessential cause could not lead to erroneous conclusions." (Yakov Khurgin, "Did You Say Mathematics?", 1974)
"We know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?" (Albert Claude, "The Coming Age of the Cell", Nobel Prize Lecture] 1974)
"Of course, we know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?" (Albert Claude,"The Coming of Age of the Cell", Science, 1975)
"Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it." (Paul K Feyerabend,"Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge", 1975)
"We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience." (R Buckminster Fuller, "Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking", 1975)
"A man in daily muddy contact with field experiments could not be expected to have much faith in any direct assumption of independently distributed normal errors." (George E P Box, "Science and Statistics", Journal of the American Statistical Association 71, 1976)
"It is argued that principle of causality is fundamental to human thinking, and it has been observed experimentally that this assumption leads to complex hypothesis formation by human subjects attempting to solve comparatively simple problems involving a causal randomly generated events." (Brian R Gaines, "On the Complexity of Causal Models", Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 1976)
"Programming systems can, of course, be built without plan and without knowledge, let alone understanding, of the deep structural issues involved, just as houses, cities, systems of dams, and national economic policies can be similarly hacked together. As a system so constructed begins to get large, however, it also becomes increasingly unstable. When one of its subfunctions fails in an unanticipated way, it may be patched until the manifest trouble disappears. But since there is no general theory of the whole system, the system itself can be only a more or less chaotic aggregate of subsystems whose influence on one another's behavior is discoverable only piecemeal and by experiment. The hacker spends part of his time at the console piling new subsystems onto the structure he has already built - he calls them 'new features' - and the rest of his time in attempts to account for the way in which substructures already in place misbehave. That is what he and the computer converse about." (Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer power and human reason: From judgment to calculation" , 1976)
"The essential function of a hypothesis consists in the guidance it affords to new observations and experiments, by which our conjecture is either confirmed or refuted." (Ernst Mach, "Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry", 1976)
"Thinking in words, consciousness is behavior, experiment is measurement." (Celia Green, "The Decline and Fall of Science", 1976)
"Modern physics is not experimental physics because it applies apparatus to the questioning of nature. Rather the reverse is true. Because physics, indeed already as pure theory, sets nature up to exhibit itself as a coherence of forces calculable in advance, it therefore orders its experiments precisely for the purpose of asking whether and how nature reports itself when set up in this way." (Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays", 1977)
"Most scientific theories, however, are ephemeral. Exceptions will likely be found that invalidate a theory in one or more of its tenets. These can then stimulate a new round of research leading either to a more comprehensive theory or perhaps to a more restrictive (i.e., more precisely defined) theory. Nothing is ever completely finished in science; the search for better theories is endless. The interpretation of a scientific experiment should not be extended beyond the limits of the available data. In the building of theories, however, scientists propose general principles by extrapolation beyond available data. When former theories have been shown to be inadequate, scientists should be prepared to relinquish the old and embrace the new in their never-ending search for better solutions. It is unscientific, therefore, to claim to have 'proof of the truth' when all that scientific methodology can provide is evidence in support of a theory." (William D Stansfield, "The Science of Evolution", 1977)
"The interpretation of a scientific experiment should not be extended beyond the limits of the available data. In the building of theories, however, scientists propose general principles by extrapolation beyond available data. When former theories have been shown to be inadequate, scientists should be prepared to relinquish the old and embrace the new in their never-ending search for better solutions. It is unscientific, therefore, to claim to have 'proof of the truth' when all that scientific methodology can provide is evidence in support of a theory." (William D Stansfield, "The Science of Evolution", 1977)
"Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment." (R Buckminster Fuller, [Interview in the Minneapolis Tribune] 1978)
"Part of the art and skill of the engineer and of the experimental physicist is to create conditions in which certain events are sure to occur." (Eugene P Wigner, "Symmetries and Reflections", 1979)
"The conceptual framework of quantum mechanics, supported by massive volumes of experimental data, forces contemporary physicists to express themselves in a manner that sounds, even to the uninitiated, like the language of mystics." (Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters", 1979)
"There is another fundamental difference between the old physics and the new physics. The old phvsics assumes that there is an external world which exists apart from us. It further assumes that we can observe measure and speculate about the external world without changing it. According to the old physics the external world is indifferent to us and to our needs. [...] The new physics, quantum mechanics, tells us clearly that it is not possible to observe reality without changing it. If we observe a certain particle collision experiment, not only do we have no way of proving that the result would have been the same if we had not been watching it, all that we know indicates that it would not have been the same, because the result that we got was affected by the fact that we were looking for it." (Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters", 1979)
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