Science Quotes

"Science is not a monolithic enterprise but a collection of diverse practices."

"Science aims at generality; history at individuality. Both are legitimate pursuits of knowledge."

"The demarcation between science and non-science is not always sharp and clear-cut."

"A scientific law must be testable and capable of being refuted by experience."

"Explanation in science requires subsumption under general laws."

"The covering law model provides a rational reconstruction of scientific explanation."

"Probabilistic laws can serve as the basis for legitimate scientific explanations."

"Scientific concepts must be operationally defined to have empirical meaning."

"A hypothesis is scientific only if it can be empirically tested and potentially falsified."

"Explanation and prediction have the same logical structure in science."

"The purpose of science is to describe and explain natural phenomena systematically."

"We cannot observe theoretical entities directly; we infer their existence from observable effects."

"A merely successful prediction does not constitute a genuine scientific explanation."

"Laws of nature differ from accidental generalizations in their modal force."

"A scientific explanation must invoke general laws, not merely particular facts."

"Explanation requires nomological necessity—subsumption under exceptionless laws."

"Anomalies in science can sometimes lead to revolutionary new theories."

"The rationality of science lies in its self-correcting mechanisms."

"The evidence never uniquely determines a theory; underdetermination is endemic."

"Explanation differs from mere description by invoking causal or nomological principles."

"A complete science would explain why the fundamental laws are as they are."

"Observational terms and theoretical terms blur together in mature science."

"The role of mathematics in science is to represent structural relationships precisely."

"Scientific realism assumes that our best theories describe reality as it actually is."

"Falsifiability is a criterion of empirical significance, not truth."

"The explanatory power of a theory must be evaluated relative to its alternatives."

"Rational criticism of scientific theories requires explicit standards of evaluation."

"The unity of science is an aspiration rather than an accomplished fact."

"Logical analysis reveals the structure of scientific reasoning."

"A theory that explains everything explains nothing in particular."