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An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.

John B. S. Haldane

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John B. S. Haldane
Age: 72 †
Born: 1892
Born: November 5
Died: 1964
Died: December 1
Biochemist
Biologist
Geneticist
Physiologist
Scientist
University Teacher
Hartford
Connecticut
J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Evolution
Stellar
Study
Futile
Stars
Reference
Living
Organisms
Science
Ignored
Without
Account
Would
Attempt
Accounts
Spectroscopy

More quotes by John B. S. Haldane

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The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.
John B. S. Haldane
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I have never yet met a healthy person who worried very much about his health, or a really good person who worried much about his own soul.
John B. S. Haldane
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I have come to the conclusion that my subjective account of my motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don't know why I do things.
John B. S. Haldane
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It was a reaction from the old idea of protoplasm, a name which was a mere repository of ignorance.
John B. S. Haldane
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In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better.
John B. S. Haldane
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Science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be that no beliefs, no values, no institutions are safe.
John B. S. Haldane
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The conclusion forced upon me in the course of a life devoted to natural science is that the universe as it is assumed to be in physical science is only an idealized world, while the real universe is the spiritual universe in which spiritual values count for everything.
John B. S. Haldane
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A time will however come (as I believe) when physiology will invade and destroy mathematical physics, as the latter has destroyed geometry.
John B. S. Haldane
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This is my prediction for the future: Whatever hasn't happened will happen, and no one will be safe from it.
John B. S. Haldane
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We must learn not to take traditional morals too seriously. And it is just because even the least dogmatic of religions tends to associate itself with some kind of unalterable moral tradition, that there can be no truce between science and religion.
John B. S. Haldane
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So far from being an isolated phenomenon the late war is only an example of the disruptive result that we may constantly expect from the progress of science.
John B. S. Haldane
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Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.
John B. S. Haldane
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Blake expressed some doubt as to whether God had made the tiger. But the tiger is in many ways an admirable animal. We have now to ask whether God made the tapeworm. And it is questionable whether an affirmative answer fits in either with what we know about the process of evolution or what many of us believe about the moral perfection of God.
John B. S. Haldane
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Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. What inference, asked the latter, might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works? Haldane replied: An inordinate fondness for beetles.
John B. S. Haldane
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I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
John B. S. Haldane
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Man armed with science is like a baby with a box of matches.
John B. S. Haldane
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You can analyze a glass of water and you're left with a lot of chemical components, but nothing you can drink.
John B. S. Haldane
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I think, however, that so long as our present economic and national systems continue, scientific research has little to fear.
John B. S. Haldane
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I will give up my belief in evolution if someone finds a fossil rabbit in the Precambrian.
John B. S. Haldane
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There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.
John B. S. Haldane