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The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.

Claude Bernard

The first requirement in using statistics is that the facts treated shall be reduced to comparable units.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Compare Requirement Statistics Treat
With the aid of these active experimental sciences man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress of the experimental sciences.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Active Creation Experiment Head Limitation Nature Progress Science
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General Science
Well-observed facts, though brought to light by passing theories, will never die; they are the material on which alone the house of science will at last be built.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Built Death Fact Material Observation Science
Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So these despisers of their fellows make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Enough Firm Man Seek Theory Truth
It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Deep Knowledge Learning Ourselves Prevent
Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Discover Hard Time Joy Struggle
Our ideas are only intellectual instruments which we use to break into phenomena; we must change them when they have served their purpose, as we change a blunt lancet that we have used long enough.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Break Change Enough Ideas Instrument Intellectual Purpose
The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Experiment Himself Seek True Worth
In science, the best precept is to alter and exchange our ideas as fast as science moves ahead.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Ahead exchange Fast Ideas Move Science
We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎
CLAUDE BERNARD

Adapt Nature Theory
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Illusion Influence Mental Mindset Thinking
Science admits no exceptions; otherwise there would be no determinism in science, or rather, there would be no science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Admit Determination Exception Science
A discovery is generally an unforeseen relation not included in theory.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Discover General Theory
The great experimental principle, then, is doubt, that philosophic doubt which leaves to the mind its freedom and initiative, and from which the virtues most valuable to investigators in physiology and medicine are derived.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Doubt Experiment Freedom Greatness Leave Medicine Mindset Principle Virtue
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Simplicity

The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.

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The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.

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