DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Any attempt to reduce the complex properties of biological organisms or of nervous systems or of human brains to simple physical and… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Accounting for the most part, remains a legalistic and traditional practice, almost immune to self-criticism by scientific methods. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Economics, we learn in the history of thought, only became a science by escaping from the casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
The organization of science into disciplines sets up a series of ghettos with remarkable distances of artificial social space between them. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
The proposition that the meek (that is the adaptable and serviceable), inherit the earth is not merely a wishful sentiment of religion,… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Physicists only talk to physicists, economists to economists-worse still, nuclear physicists only talk to nuclear physicists and econometricians to econometricians. One wonders… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Perhaps the most difficult ethical problem of the scientific community arises not so much from conflict with other subcultures as from its… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
[In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
The ability to work with systems of general equilibrium is perhaps one of the most important skills of the economist - a… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
No science of any kind can be divorced from ethical considerations... Science is a human learning process which arises in certain subcultures… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
There are, of course, a number of epistemological questions, some of which lie more in the province of the philosopher than they… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Thus we seem to be on the verge of an expansion of welfare economics into something like a social science of ethics… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
[In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the real world...… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
It is clear that the building of models is not a purely mechanical process but requires skill of a high order - not merely… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
Even personal tastes are learned, in the matrix of a culture or a subculture in which we grow up, by very much the same… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
In view of the importance of philanthropy in our society, it is surprising that so little attention has been given to it by economic… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
[The question for the behavioral disciplines is simply] what is better, and how do we get there? — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
[Even the mechanism can be endowed with an image. Thus] the thermostat has an image of the outside world in the shape of information… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
Economic problems have no sharp edges. They shade off imperceptibly into politics, sociology, and ethics. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
Mathematicians themselves set up standards of generality and elegance in their exposition which are a bar to understand. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
The concept of need is often looked upon rather unfavorably by economists, in contrast with the concept of demand. Both, however, have their own… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
Conventions of generality and mathematical elegance may be just as much barriers to the attainment and diffusion of knowledge as may contentment with particularity… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
Nothing fails like success, because we do not learn anything from it. We only learn from failure, but we do not always learn the… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share
At the opposite pole from the gift is tribute - that is, a grant made out of fear and under threat. A threat is… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share