It appears that anything you say about the way that theory and experiment may interact is likely to be correct, and anything you say about the way that theory and experiment must interact is likely to be wrong.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the complexity of the relationship between theory and experimental evidence in scientific inquiry.
Steven Weinberg reflects on the intricate interplay between scientific theories and experiments. He suggests that while we can accurately discuss how these two elements might interact, definitive claims about their necessary interactions often lead to inaccuracies. This underscores the importance of flexibility and open-mindedness in scientific exploration.
In practice
This quote might be used in a lecture about the philosophy of science to emphasize the evolution of scientific understanding.
It was one time when people thought the value of the fine structure constant was important. Now of course it's still important, of course, as a practical matter,but we now know that the value it has is a function, that in any fundamental theory you derive the fine structure constant as a function of all sorts of mass ratios and so on and it's not really that fundamental.
Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
[Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just... you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?
I always say, 'Let your experiment speak to you.' What I mean by that is I - actually, we, or, at least, I'm not smart enough, actually, to guess how nature is working, but by looking and doing the right experiments and paying close attention to the subtleties of it, you start to catch on.
There may have been many big bangs, one of which created our universe. The other bangs created other universes.
If you're going to go into space, you have to have an objective, a mission. Where do you want to go? Earth orbit? The moon? Mars? What's the technology to get there? You develop the technology for the mission.
Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.
I think the question is, are there women and have there been women who want to do science and could be doing great science, but they never really got the opportunity?
I have seen firsthand that agricultural science has enormous potential to increase the yields of small farmers and lift them out of hunger and poverty.
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