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[A certain class of explanations in science are] analgesics that dull the ache of incomprehension without removing the cause.

Peter Medawar

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Peter Medawar
Age: 72 †
Born: 1915
Born: February 28
Died: 1987
Died: October 2
Autobiographer
Biologist
Immunologist
Physician
Physiologist
Professor
Writer
Zoologist
Rio
P.B. Medawar
P. B. Medawar
Sir Peter Medawar
Without
Ache
Explanation
Dull
Cause
Causes
Class
Incomprehension
Science
Removing
Certain
Explanations

More quotes by Peter Medawar

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Scientific reasoning is a dialogue between the possible and the actual, between proposal and disposal between what might be true, and what is in fact the case.
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The fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said-has been said-that there is a distinctive methodology of science which scientists practice unwittingly, like the chap in Moliere who found that all his life, unknowingly, he had been speaking prose.
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When asked to make the formal declaration that I did not intend to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, I was fool enough to reply that I had no such purpose, but that were I to do it by mistake I should be inexpressibly contrite.
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I regret my disbelief in God.
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An experiment not worth doing is not worth doing well.
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Heredity proposes and development disposes.
Peter Medawar
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The bells which toll for mankind are - most of them, anyway - like the bells of Alpine cattle they are attached to our own necks, and it must be our fault if they do not make a cheerful and harmonious sound.
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To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind.
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To abdicate from the rule of reason and substitute for it an authentication of belief by the intentness and degree of conviction with which we hold it can be perilous and destructive. Religious beliefs give a spurious spiritual dimension to tribal enmities.
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It is a truism to say that a good experiment is precisely that which spares us the exertion of thinking: the better it is, the less we have to worry about its interpretation, about what it really means.
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No scientist is admired for failing in the attempt to solve problems that lie beyond his competence. ... Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.
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Psychoanalytic theory is the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century and a terminal product as well-something akin to a dinosaur or zeppelin in the history of ideas, a vast structure of radically unsound design and with no posterity.
Peter Medawar
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The intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or false. The importance of the strength of our conviction is only to provide a proportionately strong incentive to find out if the hypothesis will stand up to critical evaluation.
Peter Medawar
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Twice in my life I have spent two weary and scientifically profitless years seeking evidence to corroborate dearly loved hypotheses that later proved to be groundless times such as these are hard for scientists-days of leaden gray skies bringing with them a miserable sense of oppression and inadequacy.
Peter Medawar
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I do not propose to criticize the fatuous argument I have just outlined here, to expound is to expose.
Peter Medawar
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It can be said with complete confidence that any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be interesting.
Peter Medawar
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The art of research [is] the art of making difficult problems soluble by devising means of getting at them.
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Scientists who think science consists of unprejudiced data-gathering without speculation are merely cows grazing on the pasture of knowledge.
Peter Medawar
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The case I shall find evidence for is that when literature arrives, it expels science.
Peter Medawar
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I do not believe indeed, I deem it a comic blunder to believe that the exercise of reason is sufficient to explain our condition and where necessary to remedy it, but I do believe that the exercise of reason is at all times necessary.
Peter Medawar