"Nature gropes and blunders and performs the crudest acts. There is no steady advance upward. There is no design."

"Nature gropes and blunders and performs the crudest acts. There is no steady advance upward. There is no design."
-- Oliver Sacks (biologist & neurologist, 1933- )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sacks

"Nature uses as little as possible of anything."

"Nature uses as little as possible of anything."
-- Johannes Kepler (astronomer, 1571-1630)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler

"Life is not a miracle.

"Life is not a miracle. It is a natural phenomenon, and can be expected to appear whenever there is a planet whose conditions duplicate those of the earth. ... [My study of the universe] leaves little doubt that life has occurred on other planets. I doubt if the human race is the most intelligent form of life."
-- Harold Urey (chemist, 1893-1981)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Urey

"Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

"Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
-- J.B.S. Haldane (geneticist, 1892-1964)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane

"Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump.

"Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump."
-- Willard Van Orman Quine (philosopher & logician, 1908-2000)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine

"The progress of science is often affected more by the frailties of humans and their institutions than by the...

"The progress of science is often affected more by the frailties of humans and their institutions than by the limitations of scientific measuring devices. The scientific method is only as effective as the humans using it. It does not automatically lead to progress."
-- Steven Zumdahl (chemist, 1942- )
http://www.chemistry.illinois.edu/events/alumni/index.html

"The fascination of any search after truth lies not in the attainment, which at best is found to be very relative,...

"The fascination of any search after truth lies not in the attainment, which at best is found to be very relative, but in the pursuit, where all the powers of the mind and character are brought into play and are absorbed by the task. One feels oneself in contact with something that is infinite and one finds joy that is beyond expression in sounding the abyss of science and the secrets of the infinite mind."
-- Florence Bascom (geologist, 1862-1945)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Bascom

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty.

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong."
-- Richard Feynman (theoretical physicist, 1918-1988)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman

"There are many examples of old, incorrect theories that stubbornly persisted, sustained only by the prestige of...

"There are many examples of old, incorrect theories that stubbornly persisted, sustained only by the prestige of foolish but well-connected scientists. ... Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experiment exposed their incorrectness."
-- Michio Kaku (physicist, 1947- )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku

"Science, my boy, is composed of errors, but errors that it is right to make, for they lead step by step to the...

"Science, my boy, is composed of errors, but errors that it is right to make, for they lead step by step to the truth."
-- Jules Verne (author, 1828-1905)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne

"By doubting we come to enquiry, and through enquiry we perceive truth."

"By doubting we come to enquiry, and through enquiry we perceive truth."
-- Peter Abelard (philosopher & logician, 1079-1142)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Abelard

"Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty.

"Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome."
-- Stephen Jay Gould (paleontologist & evolutionary biologist, 1941-2002)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould

"The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as...

"The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where we least expect to find them."
-- Tacitus (historian, 56-117)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus

"Scientists have one thing in common with children: curiosity.

"Scientists have one thing in common with children: curiosity. To be a good scientist you must have kept this trait of childhood, and perhaps it is not easy to retain just one trait. A scientist has to be curious like a child; perhaps one can understand that there are other childish features he hasn't grown out of. "
-- Otto Robert Frisch (physicist, 1904-1979)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Robert_Frisch

"Asian Homo erectus died without issue and does not enter our immediate ancestry (for we evolved from African...

"Asian Homo erectus died without issue and does not enter our immediate ancestry (for we evolved from African populations); Neanderthal people were collateral cousins, perhaps already living in Europe while we emerged in Africa... In other words, we are an improbable and fragile entity, fortunately successful after precarious beginnings as a small population in Africa, not the predictable end result of a global tendency. We are a thing, an item of history, not an embodiment of general principles."
-- Stephen Jay Gould (paleontologist & evolutionary biologist, 1941-2002)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould

"An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens sapiens has...

"An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances. As we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal."
-- Richard Leakey (anthropologist, 1944- )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Leakey

"Genius is patience."

"Genius is patience."
-- Isaac Newton (physicist & mathematician, 1643-1727)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them."

"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them."
-- William Lawrence Bragg (physicist, 1890-1971)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lawrence_Bragg

"In science, one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever...

"In science, one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
-- Paul Dirac (theoretical physicist, 1902-1984)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac

"Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility.

"Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate boundaries."
-- Vannevar Bush (engineer & computer scientist, 1890-1974)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush

"Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are...

"Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles." (1970)
-- James Watson (biochemist & geneticist, 1928- )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."
-- Herbert Alexander Simon (sociologist, 1916-2001)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon

Not a quote, but share-worthy all the same.

Not a quote, but share-worthy all the same.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AhmedZeeshan/posts/X7r7oGQUvta

"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new...

"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense."
-- Carl Sagan (astronomer & astrophysicist, 1934-1996)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

"I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to...

"I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of dally life."
-- Michael Faraday (chemist & physicist, 1791-1867)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not."

"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not."
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist, 1958- )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson

"The Church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture."

"The Church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture."
-- Elbert Hubbard (writer & philosopher, 1856-1915)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard

"If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it...

"If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery."
-- William Kingdon Clifford (mathematician & philosopher, 1845-1879)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
-- Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist, 1879-1955)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

"Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment.

"Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment. Sometimes it is one foot which is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both - by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it beyond, and so on in unending alternation."
-- Robert Millikan (physicist, 1868-1953)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Andrews_Millikan