"Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use……" — Claude Bernard
"Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use in leading to discoveries. This remark is true in all the sciences. The alchemists founded chemistry by pursuing chimerical problems and theories which are false. In physical science, which is more advanced than biology, we might still cite men of science who make great discoveries by relying on false theories. It seems, indeed, a necessary weakness of our mind to be able to reach truth only across a multitude of errors and obstacles."
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Claude Bernard
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79 Quotes by Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard has 79 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
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Put off your imagination, as you put off your overcoat, when you enter the laboratory. Put it on again, as…
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The investigator should have a robust faith - and yet not believe.
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A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof…
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Science does not permit exceptions.
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In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that…
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In the philosophic sense, observation shows and experiment teaches.
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Man does not limit himself to seeing; he thinks and insists on learning the meaning of phenomena whose existence has…
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Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.
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We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
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It is impossible to devise an experiment without a preconceived idea; devising an experiment, we said, is putting a question;…
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Descriptive anatomy is to physiology what geography is to history, and just as it is not enough to know the…
See all 79 quotes by Claude Bernard »
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