Accounts Quote by Lewis Thomas
“The body of science is not, as it is sometimes thought, a huge coherent mass of facts, neatly arranged in sequence, each one attached to the next by a logical string. In truth, whenever we discover a new fact it involves the elimination of old ones. We are always, as it turns out, fundamentally in error.”
About This Quote
Source Essay: The Lives of a Cell (1974)
Science is not a tidy chain of facts; new discoveries replace old ones, showing knowledge is provisional and often incorrect.
In simple terms: Science constantly revises itself.
Key Takeaway
Embrace uncertainty and stay adaptable.
Themes
science
knowledge
error
revision
humility
Mood
thoughtful
humble
Type
analytical
philosophical
When to use this quote
- research
- education
- policy making
Key Concepts
philosophy of science
epistemology
Questions to Reflect On
- How to communicate scientific uncertainty?
- What role does error play in progress?
A Different Perspective
Constant change can erode public trust.
![“[...] we have in our treatise a series of fifty-seven examinations, almost exclusively of injuries of the human body forming a group of observations furnishing us with the earliest known nucleus of fact regarding the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the human body. Crude and elementary as they…” quote by James Henry Breasted](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/139/james-henry-breasted-20001_anatomy_we-have-in-our-treatise-a-series-of-fift_513370.jpg)
