Bertrand Russell Quotes about Science - Page 2

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.

Bertrand Russell

Wisdom, Science, Giving

Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.66, 谷月社

[Man] ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

Bertrand Russell

Inspiration, Science, Men

Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.46, Booklassic

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

Bertrand Russell

Humility, Math, Science

Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.171, Routledge

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

Bertrand Russell

Science, Men, Progress

Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.171, Psychology Press

I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.

Bertrand Russell

Science, Men, Groups

Bertrand Russell (2015). “Icarus; or, the Future of Science”, p.3, Lulu Press, Inc

All the conditions of happiness are realized in the life of the man of science.

Bertrand Russell

Life, Science, Men

Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.55, W. W. Norton & Company

The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interest of the desire to know.

Bertrand Russell

Attitude, Knowledge, Science

Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.29, 谷月社

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

Bertrand Russell

Science, Power, Energy

Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.4, Psychology Press

The first man who said "fire burns" was employing scientific method, at any rate if he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed through the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, what scientific technique demands - a careful choice of significant facts on the one hand, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than my mere generalization.

Bertrand Russell

Mean, Science, Men

"The Scientific Outlook".

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

Bertrand Russell

Math, Science, Return

Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The private years, 1884-1914”, Allen Lane

What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to assimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mind with ever-renewed encouragement.

Bertrand Russell

Encouragement, Learning, Science

Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.86, Psychology Press

Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.

Bertrand Russell

Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.378, Psychology Press

Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

Bertrand Russell

Mean, Science, Mathematical Logic

Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.626, Psychology Press

Science, in its ultimate ideal, consists of a set of propositions arranged in a hierarchy, the lowest level of the hierarchy being concerned with particular facts, and the highest with some general law, governing everything in the universe. The various levels in the hierarchy have a two-fold logical connection, travelling one up, one down; the upward connection proceeds by induction, the downward by deduction.

Bertrand Russell

Science, Law, Two

Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.38, Routledge

Philosophy is that part of science which at present people chose to have opinions about, but which they have no knowledge about. Therefore every advance in knowledge robs philosophy of some problems which formerly it had ...and will belong to science.

Bertrand Russell

Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, p.124, Routledge

When it was first proposed to establish laboratories at Cambridge, Todhunter, the mathematician, objected that it was unnecessary for students to see experiments performed, since the results could be vouched for by their teachers, all of them of the highest character, and many of them clergymen of the Church of England.

Bertrand Russell

Teacher, Character, Science

Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.620, Psychology Press

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations. If a man were to say, "I hate the human race, and I think it would be a good thing if it were exterminated," we could say, "Well, my dear sir, let us begin the process with you." But this is hardly argument, and no amount of science could prove such a man mistaken.

Bertrand Russell

Hate, Mistake, Science

Abstract work, if one wishes to do it well, must be allowed to destroy one's humanity; one raises a monument which is at the same time a tomb, in which, voluntarily, one slowly inters oneself.

Bertrand Russell

Learning, Science, Discovery

Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.168, Psychology Press

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved.

Bertrand Russell

Science, May, Ethics

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. If you take your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, they will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be disappointed in you when you cannot be sure.

Bertrand Russell

Nature, Children, Science

Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.379, Psychology Press

Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.

Bertrand Russell

Science, Law, Jeans

Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.77, Routledge

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.

Bertrand Russell

Math, Science, Giving

In astronomy, the law of gravitation is plainly better worth knowing than the position of a particular planet on a particular night, or even on every night throughout a year. There are in the law a splendour and simplicity and sense of mastery which illuminate a mass of otherwise uninteresting details. But in history the matter is far otherwise. Historical facts, many of them, have an intrinsic value, a profound interest on their own account, which makes them worthy of study, quite apart from any possibility of linking them together by means of causal laws.

Bertrand Russell

Mean, Science, Night

"On History". The Independent Review 3, pp. 207-215, users.drew.edu. July 1904.

Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

Bertrand Russell

Mistake, Women, Science

Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.66, Routledge

Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.

Bertrand Russell

Science, Triumph, World

Bertrand Russell (2004). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.484, Routledge

Bertrand Russell Quotes about Science - Page 2

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