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An ounce of algebra is worth a ton of verbal argument.

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
Verbal
Argument
Worth
Ounce
Algebra

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: (i) this is worthless nonsense (ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view (iii) this is true, but quite unimportant (iv) I always said so.
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
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Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up to date in their chemical knowledge.
John B. S. Haldane
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Einstein - the greatest Jew since Jesus. I have no doubt that Einstein's name will still be remembered and revered when Lloyd George, Foch and William Hohenzollern share with Charlie Chaplin that ineluctable oblivion which awaits the uncreative mind.
John B. S. Haldane
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I do not believe in the commercial possibility of induced radioactivity.
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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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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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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We do not know, in most cases, how far social failure and success are due to heredity, and how far to environment. But environment is the easier of the two to improve.
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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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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Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.
John B. S. Haldane
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If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.
John B. S. Haldane
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Reality is the cage of those who lack imagination.
John B. S. Haldane
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I am quite sure that our views on evolution would be very different had biologists studied genetics and natural selection before and not after most of them were convinced that evolution had occurred.
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