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I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.
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ideas
scrutiny
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Elizabeth Peters |
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At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.
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counterintuitive
ideas
nonsense
open-minded
open-mindedness
science
scrutiny
skeptical
skepticism
truth
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Carl Sagan |
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Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny -- and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do).
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evidence
evolution
objectivity
rationality
rigor
science
scrutiny
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Stephen Jay Gould |
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If someone were to propose that the planets go around the sun because all planet matter has a kind of tendency for movement, a kind of motility, let us call it an 'oomph,' this theory could explain a number of other phenomena as well. So this is a good theory, is it not? No. It is nowhere near as good as the proposition that the planets move around the sun under the influence of a central force which varies exactly inversely as the square of the distance from the center. The second theory is better because it is so specific; it is so obviously unlikely to be the result of chance. It is so definite that the barest error in the movement can show that it is wrong; but the planets could wobble all over the place, and, according to the first theory, you could say, 'Well, that is the funny behavior of the 'oomph.
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explainability
imagination
pseudoscience
rationalization
rigor
science
scrutiny
theory
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Richard P. Feynman |