Science Quote by François Jacob

““To produce a valuable observation, one has first to have an idea of what to observe, a preconception of what is possible. Scientific advances often come from uncovering a hitherto unseen aspect of things as a result, not so much of using new instruments, but rather of looking at objects from a different angle. This look is necessarily guided by a certain idea of what this so-called reality might be. It always involves a certain conception about the unknown, that is, about what lies beyond that which one has logical or experimental reasons to believe.””

François Jacob

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More by François Jacob

“What man seeks, to the point of anguish, in his gods, in his art, in his science, is meaning. He cannot bear the void.…

Francois Jacob

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Contrary to what I once thought, scientific progress did not consist simply in observing, in accurately formulating experimental facts and drawing up a theory from them. It began with the invention of a possible world, or a fragment thereof, which was then compared by experimentation with the real world. And it was this constant dialogue between imagination and experiment that…

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Evolution is a tinkerer.

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For me, this world of questions and the provisional, this chase after an answer that was always put off to the next day, all…

Francois Jacob

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It is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species. Novelties…

Francois Jacob

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I think I’ve just thought up something important,

Francois Jacob

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It is hope that gives life meaning. And hope is based on the prospect of being able one day to turn the actual world…

Francois Jacob

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Nature is a tinkerer, not an inventor.

Francois Jacob

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Myths and science fulfill a similar function: they both provide human beings with a representation of the world and of the forces that are…

Francois Jacob

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One of the deepest functions of a living organisms is to look ahead... to produce future.

Francois Jacob

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The game was that of continually inventing a possible world, or a piece of a possible world, and then of comparing it with the…

Francois Jacob

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I had turned my anxiety into my profession.

Francois Jacob

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Explore all 16 François Jacob quotes

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A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period - When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you. Then as Horizons step…

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