29 October 2023

On Truth: Scientific Truth (-1899)

"The foundations of chemical philosophy are observation, experiment, and analogy. By observation, facts are distinctly and minutely impressed on the mind. By analogy, similar facts are connected. By experiment, new facts are discovered; and, in the progression of knowledge, observation, guided by analogy, lends to experiment, and analogy confirmed by experiment, becomes scientific truth." (Sir Humphry Davy, "Elements of Chemical Philosophy" Vol. 4, 1812)

"Scientific truth is marvellous, but moral truth is divine; and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise." (Horace Mann, "A Few Thoughts for a Young Man", Monthly Literary Miscellany, 1851)

"A mere inference or theory must give way to a truth revealed; but a scientific truth must be maintained, however contradictory it may appear to the most cherished doctrines of religion." (David Brewster, "More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian", 1856)

"Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth."  (Thomas H Huxley, "Man's Place in Nature.", 1863)

"[...] the time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world; for we have reached the point where the results of science touch the very problem of existence, and all men listen for the solving of that mystery." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Methods of Study in Natural History", 1863)

"[...] Scientific truth should be presented in different forms, and should be regarded as equally scientific whether it appears in the robust form and the vivid colouring of a physical illustration, or in the tenuity and paleness of a symbolic expression." (James C Maxwell, [address] 1870)

"It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors." (Thomas H Huxley, "The Progress of Science", 1887)

"The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." (Thomas H Huxley, "Darwiniana", 1893–94)

"By observation, facts are distinctly and minutely impressed in the mind; by analogy, similar facts are connected ; by experiment, new facts are discovered ; and, in the progression of knowledge, observation, guided by analogy, leads to experiment, and analogy, confirmed by experiment, becomes scientific truth." (Sir Humphry Davy)

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