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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

Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge. It is in the darker. It is in the darker regions of science that great men are recognized; they are marked by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure and carry science forward.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Average Darkness Greatness Knowledge Man Recognition Science
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 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.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Determination Fact Goal Reason Reduce Science
Obervation is a passive science, experimentation is an active science.
CLAUDE BERNARD

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

Compare Requirement Statistics Treat
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
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
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
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
Put off your imagination, as you put off your overcoat, when you enter the laboratory. Put it on again, as you put on your overcoat, when you leave.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Imagination Leaving Science Yourself
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Doubt Ignorance Science Teaching True
The minds that rise and become really great are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Greatness Mindset Rise Satisfaction Strive
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
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Lower Ourselves Power Pride Science
The science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen.
CLAUDE BERNARD

Kitchen Life Light Reach Science

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.

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Popular Authors

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