"I mean a comparatively simple thing by the scientific method:
the ability to look at what goes on around you. Listen to what
you hear, observe, note facts, delay your judgement, and make
your own predictions. That's all there is, really, to the
scientific method: to be able to distinguish facts from non-
facts." Robert A. Heinlein, 1941
"I wish to make it plain that the use of the scientific method
does not depend on any formal education in science. It is an
attitude and point of view and not a body of information."
Robert A. Heinlein, 1941
"What are the facts? Again and again and again---what are the
facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget
what "the stars foretold," avoid opinion, care not what the
neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history"-
--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot
always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get
the facts." Robert A. Heinlein,1973
"The public needs to hear that we live in a universe governed by
natural laws that cannot be circumvented but can be understood
and used to benefit humanity. Progress is never smooth. Each new
application begets new problems.
But it is science that uncovers the problems and it is to science
that we turn to solve them. This is not because scientists have
any greater claim to intellect or to virtue, but because science
is the only means to sort out the truth from ideology or fraud or
mere foolishness." Robert L. Park, writing in the New York
Times, 1995
"The world of our senses is too unhappy, too unjust, too fleeting
for many to accept. But we cannot let this desire for perfection
and immortality cloud our judgement of the facts." Victor
Stenger, Physics and Psychics, 1990, p13
"We skeptics are free to believe something when the evidence is
strong, as long as we are willing to change our views when the
evidence swings the other way. Put another way, we can almost be
dogmatic. We should always leave the window open a crack for the
admission of a worthy new idea, alyhough not quite so wide as to
allow all the rubbish flying around outside to be blown in."
Victor Stenger, Physics and Psychics, 1990, p58
"Once one abandons Occam's razor the field is open to every
fantasy. Centuries of human experience warn us, however, that
such an approach is not the way to discover the truth." Norman H.
Horowitz, 1977
This page is maintained by Eric Krieg Special thanks to Tom Napier for typing in most of this