Quote

The goal of scientific physicians in their own science ... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.

Claude Bernard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Claude Bernard
Age: 64 †
Born: 1813
Born: July 12
Died: 1878
Died: February 10
Physician Writer
Physiologist
Politician
Professor
Psychologist
Stills
Scientific
Still
Therefore
Indeterminate
Cause
Observed
Cases
Physicians
Causes
Reduce
Goal
Apply
Science
Statistics
Facts
Observation

More quotes by Claude Bernard

Image
First causes are outside the realm of science.
Claude Bernard
Image
We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.
Claude Bernard
Image
The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion.
Claude Bernard
Image
Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge. It is in the darker. It is in the darker regions of science that great men are recognized they are marked by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure and carry science forward.
Claude Bernard
Image
Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge
Claude Bernard
Image
Proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be established that when this condition is removed, the phenomen will no longer appear.
Claude Bernard
Image
In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory.
Claude Bernard
Image
The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.
Claude Bernard
Image
Theories are like a stairway by climbing, science widens its horizon more and more, because theories embody and necessarily include proportionately more facts as they advance.
Claude Bernard
Image
Our ideas are only intellectual instruments which we use to break into phenomena we must change them when they have served their purpose, as we change a blunt lancet that we have used long enough.
Claude Bernard
Image
Effects vary with the conditions which bring them to pass, but laws do not vary. Physiological and pathological states are ruled by the same forces they differ only because of the special conditions under which the vital laws manifest themselves.
Claude Bernard
Image
All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment.
Claude Bernard
Image
It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
Claude Bernard
Image
Now, a living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvellous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism.
Claude Bernard
Image
Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.
Claude Bernard
Image
Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So ... these despisers of their fellows ... make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth.
Claude Bernard
Image
The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.
Claude Bernard
Image
Science admits no exceptions otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.
Claude Bernard
Image
A great discovery is a fact whose appearance in science gives rise to shining ideas, whose light dispels many obscurities and shows us new paths.
Claude Bernard
Image
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
Claude Bernard