One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance of the mathematical imagination.
Freeman DysonRead
Scepticism is as important for a good journalist as it is for a good scientist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Scepticism is essential for both journalists and scientists to ensure accuracy and truth in their work.
This quote emphasizes the critical role that scepticism plays in the practices of journalism and scientific inquiry. Both fields rely on rigorous questioning and evaluation of information to uncover the truth, challenge assumptions, and prevent the dissemination of falsehoods. Scepticism encourages a mindset that seeks evidence and understanding rather than accepting claims at face value.
Themes
ScepticismJournalismScienceTruthEvidence
In practice
Example use cases
In a journalism seminar, a speaker quoted Dyson to illustrate the importance of questioning sources.
More from Freeman Dyson
All quotes βBiology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century.
Freeman DysonRead
As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence, I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so
Freeman DysonRead
It's not going to be just humans colonizing space, it's going to be life moving out from the Earth, moving it into its kingdom. And the kingdom of life, of course, is going to be the universe.
Freeman DysonRead
The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.
Freeman DysonRead
For some days I quietly worked out in my own mind the metaphysics of Cosmic Unity. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it was the living truth. It was logically incontrovertible. It provided for the first time a firm foundation for ethics. It offered mankind the radical change of heart and mind that was our only hope of peace at a time of desperate danger. Only one small problem remained. I must find a way to convert the world to my way of thinking.
Freeman DysonRead
Similar quotes
Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.
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Having been the discoverer of many splendid things, he is said to have asked his friends and relations that, after his death, they should place on his tomb a cylinder enclosing a sphere, writing on it the proportion of the containing solid to that which is contained.
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An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
Ernest RutherfordRead
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.
Charles DarwinRead
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
Bertrand RussellRead
No matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, basic research has proven over and over to be the lifeline of practical advances in medicine.
Arthur KornbergRead