The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
CLAUDE BERNARDWe must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.
More Claude Bernard Quotes
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Those who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.
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The fact that knowledge endlessly recedes as the investigator is about to grasp it is what constitutes at the same time his torment and happiness.
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In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations.
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Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.
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We achieve more than we know. We know more than we understand. We understand more than we can explain.
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If I had to define life in a single phrase, I should clearly express my thought of throwing into relief one characteristic which, in my opinion, sharply differentiates biological science. I should say: life is creation.
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We must remain, in a word, in an intellectual disposition which seems paradoxical, but which, in my opinion, represents the true mind of the investigator. We must have a robust faith and yet not believe.
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The mental never influences the physical. It is always the physical that modifies the mental, and when we think that the mind is diseased, it is always an illusion.
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First causes are outside the realm of science.
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All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment.
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The goal of scientific physicians in their own science … is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.
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Science rejects the indeterminate.
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When entering on new ground we must not be afraid to express even risky ideas so as to stimulate research in all directions. As Priestley put it, we must not remain inactive through false modesty based on fear of being mistaken.
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We must keep our freedom of mind, and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.
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Feeling alone guides the mind.
CLAUDE BERNARD