THEORY QUOTES
quotations about theory and theories
Theory is often just practice with the hard bits left out.
J. M. ROBSON
attributed, Killer Quotes: Knock 'Em Dead, Win Your Point
Scientific support for a theory comes not merely from the fact that it explains the evidence, but from the fact that it is the best explanation of the evidence, where a theory is "better" to the extent that it is more simple, elegant, and parsimonious than its rivals.
PHILIP GOFF
"Panpsychism is a crazy theory about consciousness -- and it's probably true", The Week, March 6, 2017
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
KARL POPPER
attributed, Living on the Edge: 28 Papers in Honour of Jonathan Kaye
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
YOGI BERRA
attributed, Quotable Quotes: Wit and Wisdom from the Greatest Minds of Our Time
Every theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy that orders experience into the framework it provides.
RUTH HUBBARD
"Have Only Men Evolved?", Women Look at Biology Looking at Women
Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
The Sense of Beauty
Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena.
WILHELM REICH
The Function of the Organism
In science, the word theory isn't applied lightly. It doesn't mean a hunch or a guess. A theory is a system of explanations that ties together a whole bunch of facts. It not only explains those facts, but predicts what you ought to find from other observations and experiments.
KENNETH R. MILLER
"In Science, It's Never 'Just a Theory'", New York Times, April 8, 2016
One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
JEAN ROSTAND
"A Biologist's Thoughts", The Substance of Man
The secret of theory is that truth does not exist.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
Fragments
An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.
ERNST F. SCHUMACHER
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered
In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
If a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally.
GEORGE ELLIS & JOSEPH SILK
"Is String Theory Science?", Scientific American, December 23, 2015
If we are committed to combating alternate facts -- as we should be -- then we must also combat the alternative theories that license them.
ANDREW SHTULMAN
"In Public Understanding Of Science, Alternative Facts Are The Norm", NPR, May 29, 2017
A theory is no more like a fact than a photograph is like a person.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
attributed, Killer Quotes: Knock 'Em Dead, Win Your Point
A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
The Light of Other Days
Professors in every branch of the sciences prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is, that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Theories are neither hunches nor guesses. They are the crown jewels of science.
CARL ZIMMER
"In Science, It's Never 'Just a Theory'", New York Times, April 8, 2016
To despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says.
FONTENELLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A theory is certainly NOT mere subjective speculation, or something that is probably wrong, but, quite the contrary, something that has been scrutinized by the scientific process of empirical validation and has, so far, passed the test of explaining the data.
MARCELO GLEISER
"Why Is 'Theory' Such A Confusing Word?", NPR, March 23, 2016