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When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

Claude Bernard

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
Priestley said that each discovery we make shows us many others that should be made.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Discover Science Show
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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Believe Faith Intellectual Opinion Word
The minds that rise and become really great are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Greatness Mindset Rise Satisfaction Strive
Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Active Experiment Observation Passive Science
It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Deep Knowledge Learning Ourselves Prevent
Art is ‘I’; science is ‘we’.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Art Science
Effects vary with the conditions which bring them to pass, but laws do not vary. Physiological and pathological states are ruled by the same forces; they differ only because of the special conditions under which the vital laws manifest themselves.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Condition Force Law Manifestation State
The better educated we are and the more acquired information we have, the better prepared shall we find our minds for making great and fruitful discoveries.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Better Discover Education Information Mindset
We must keep our freedom of mind, and must believe that in nature what is absurd, according to our theories, is not always impossible.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Absurd Believe Freedom Impossible Mindset Nature
We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Confirm Control Experiment Ideas Simplicity
Science rejects the indeterminate.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Rejection Science
Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Establishment Fact General Science
All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Condition Environment Object Oneself Preserve
We achieve more than we know. We know more than we understand. We understand more than we can explain.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Achievement Explanation Team Work Understand
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

When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

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When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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