The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. Peter Medawar More Quotes by Peter Medawar More Quotes From Peter Medawar 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. Peter Medawar might science reality If a person is A) poorly, B) receives treatment intended to make him better, and C) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. Peter Medawar medical-science get-better may For a scientist must indeed be freely imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and yet a critic. There is a sense in which he must be free, but another in which his thought must be very preceisely regimented; there is poetry in science, but also a lot of bookkeeping. Peter Medawar creative imagination science The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all. Peter Medawar alternatives term thinking Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the world we were young in. Peter Medawar hunting growing-up anger 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 yield discovery science 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. Peter Medawar bells cheerful faults The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the world put together. Peter Medawar humorous religious school 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 science history ideas The purpose of scientific enquiry is not to compile an inventory of factual information, nor to build up a totalitarian world picture of natural Laws in which every event that is not compulsory is forbidden. We should think of it rather as a logically articulated structure of justifiable beliefs about nature. Peter Medawar information law thinking It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief. Peter Medawar religious spiritual blood It is a common failing-and one that I have myself suffered from-to fall in love with a hypothesis and to be unwilling to take no for an answer. A love affair with a pet hypothesis can waste years of precious time. There is very often no finally decisive yes, though quite often there can be a decisive no. Peter Medawar falling-in-love science years Science is the art of the solvable. Peter Medawar art Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth. Peter Medawar observation innocent unbiased I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not. Peter Medawar truth advice giving Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud? Peter Medawar fraud paper science Heredity proposes and development disposes. Peter Medawar heredity development science If a scientist were to cut his ear off, no one would take it as evidence of a heightened sensibility. Peter Medawar cutting luck ears 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. Peter Medawar constitution-of-the-united-states purpose mistake The attempt to discover and promulgate the truth is nevertheless an obligation upon all scientists, one that must be persevered in no matter what the rebuffs—for otherwise what is the point in being a scientist? Peter Medawar scientist truth-is matter
