A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place. James Bryant Conant More Quotes by James Bryant Conant More Quotes From James Bryant Conant Science emerges from the other progressive activities of man to the extent that new concepts arise from experiments and observations, and that the new concepts in turn lead to further experiments and observations. James Bryant Conant progressive men science ... scientific research is compounded of ... empirical procedures, general speculative ideas, and mathematical or abstract reasoning. James Bryant Conant research science ideas The dignity of man is vindicated as much by the thinker and poet as by the statesman and soldier. James Bryant Conant dignity soldier men It seems as though I were in a lunatic asylum, but I am never sure who is the attendant and who the inmate. James Bryant Conant lunatic-asylums inmates seems Even the development of the steam engine owed but little to the advancement of science. James Bryant Conant advancement development littles Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science. James Bryant Conant taken special years