#theory

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#deduction #information #mistake #theories #theory

A clever schoolboy's reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#education #literary-theory #reading #education

A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant. ↗

— Manfred Eigen

#being #irrelevant #may #model #only

America traditionally represents the greatest possibility of someone's going from nothing to something. Why? In theory, if not practice, the government stays out of the way and lets individuals take risks and reap rewards or accept the consequences of failure. We call this capitalism - or, at least, we used to. ↗

— Larry Elder

#america #call #capitalism #consequences #failure

...a useful coorective to the triumphalism of some scientists. For example, Maddox went out of his way to emphasise the provisional nature of much physics - he referred to black holes as 'putative' only, to the search for theories of everything as 'the embodiment of a belief, even a hope' and stated that the reason why the quantum gravity project is 'becalmed' right now is because 'the problem to be solved is not yet fully understood' and that the idea that the universe began with a Big Bang 'will be found to be false'. ↗

— Peter Watson

#theory-of-everything #beauty

The proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in non-humans is inconsistent with the theory of evolution. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#characteristics #evolution #humans #inconsistent #mental

When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.' page 21 ↗

— Jane McGonigal

#games-theory #change

In each succeeding war there is a tendency to proclaim as something new the principles under which it is conducted. Not only those who have never studied or experienced the realities of war, but also professional soldiers frequently fall into the error. But the principles of warfare as I learned them at West Point remain unchanged. ↗

— John J. Pershing

#military #military-theory #the-great-war #united-states-military #world-war-

You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true. ↗

— Christopher Hampton

#important #know #more #much #scientist

Every theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy that orders experience into the framework it provides. ↗

— Ruth Hubbard

#experience #framework #into #orders #prophecy