#scientific

The theory of phlogiston was an inversion of the true nature of combustion. Removing phlogiston was in reality adding oxygen, while adding phlogiston was actually removing oxygen. The theory was a total misrepresentation of reality. Phlogiston did not even exist, and yet its existence was firmly believed and the theory adhered to rigidly for nearly one hundred years throughout the eighteenth century. ... As experimentation continued the properties of phlogiston became more bizarre and contradictory. But instead of questioning the existence of this mysterious substance it was made to serve more comprehensive purposes. ... For the skeptic or indeed to anyone prepared to step out of the circle of Darwinian belief, it is not hard to find inversions of common sense in modern evolutionary thought which are strikingly reminiscent of the mental gymnastics of the phlogiston chemists or the medieval astronomers. To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of one thousand volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence! ↗

— Michael Denton

#coincidence #consensus #darwinism #evolution #macro-evolution

Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory---let the theory go. ↗

— Agatha Christie

#scientific-method #style

The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which is being tested for viability in that niche. ↗

— David Deutsch

#scientific-method #science

Love is a form of pleasure. Pleasure is caused by the release of endorphins. The things we believe make a person attractive on pheromones. You respond positively to someone whose pheromones are compatible with your own, making you think you're falling in love. But it's all in your head. Literally." (Avery James) ↗

— Shana Norris

#love #scientific #love

It is a scientific fact that your body will not absorb cholesterol if you take it from another person's plate. ↗

— Dave Barry

#absorb #another #body #cholesterol #fact

Let me tell you - when I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble. You don't think about breaking records anymore, you don't think about gaining scientific data - the only thing that you want is to come back alive. ↗

— Felix Baumgartner

#alive #anymore #back #become #breaking

It makes sense to invest in new work. It's almost like having a research department in a scientific laboratory. You have to try things out. You'll make some bad mistakes. Some things will fail but at least you'll energise the organisation. ↗

— Gavin Bryars

#bad #department #fail #having #invest

Einstein's results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge. ↗

— Imre Lakatos

#einstein #few #knowledge #now #philosophers

One of the things that I've been doing recently in my scientific research is to ask this question: Is the universe actually capable of performing things like digital computations? ↗

— Seth Lloyd

#ask #been #capable #computations #digital

Traditional market researchers are cold and calculating and scientific. ↗

— Frank Luntz

#cold #market #researchers #scientific #traditional