No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement? On the contrary, has not science the noble privilege of carrying on its controversies without personal quarrels?
Interpretation
Science seeks truth and must engage in controversy, but it should remain objective and avoid personal attacks.
Rudolf Virchow emphasizes the importance of maintaining objectivity in scientific debates. He argues that while science inevitably involves controversy to uncover the complete truth, the discourse should focus on the ideas rather than personal character attacks. This approach preserves the integrity of scientific inquiry and allows for constructive dialogue that advances knowledge without descending into personal animosity.
In practice
This quote can be used during a scientific conference to emphasize the importance of objective debate.
Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution. The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems fall to a large extent within their jurisdiction.
Medical education does not exist to provide students with a way of making a living, but to ensure the health of the community.
The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them.
If popular medicine gave the people wisdom as well as knowledge, it would be the best protection for scientific and well-trained physicians.
Disease is not something personal and special, but only a manifestation of life under modified conditions, operating according to the same laws as apply to the living body at all times, from the first moment until death.
Belief has no place as far as science reaches, and may be first permitted to take root where science stops.
As you may know, some of the stereotyped behaviors exhibited by autistic children are also found in zoo animals who are raised in a barren environment.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
Ideas which have been developed simultaneously or in immediate succession in the same mind mutually reproduce each other, and do this with greater ease in the direction of the original succession and with a certainty proportional to the frequency with which they were together
You have that one basic string, but it can vibrate in many ways. But we're trying to get a lot of particles because experimental physicists have discovered a lot of particles.
When I began in 1960, individuality wasn't an accepted thing to look for; it was about species-specific behaviour. But animal behaviour is not hard science. There's room for intuition.
It is my supposition that the Universe in not only queerer than we imagine, is queerer than we can imagine.
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