Our assessment of socio-economic worth is largely a sham. We scientists should not lend ourselves to it - though we routinely do. We should, instead, insist on applying the criterion of quality.
John PolanyiRead
For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True scholarship prioritizes truth above all personal or sectarian interests.
John Polanyi emphasizes that genuine scholarship is a pursuit that requires not only freedom but also a commitment to truth. This means that academic work should transcend personal agendas or biases, and scholars must be willing to prioritize factual accuracy and objectivity over sectarian beliefs or self-serving motives. This perspective calls for integrity and honesty in the pursuit of knowledge.
Themes
ScholarshipTruthLibertyKnowledgeEducation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be cited during a lecture about academic integrity.
More from John Polanyi
All quotes βIf we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people's experience.
John PolanyiRead
It is this, at its most basic, that makes science a humane pursuit; it acknowledges the commonality of people's experience.
John PolanyiRead
When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves.
John PolanyiRead
Similar quotes
A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
William StyronRead
Television is a non graded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away wtih the idea of sequenece and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself.
Neil PostmanRead
So, I was in a segregated, all black, public elementary school until fourth grade, until my father died. And that's when my mother transferred me to a private, predominantly white school and I saw both sides of the world at a very young age.
Maya WileyRead
I believe sanity and realism can be restored to the teaching of Mathematical Statistics most easily and directly by entrusting such teaching largely to men and women who have had personal experience of research in the Natural Sciences.
Ronald FisherRead
All genuine learning is active, not passive. It involves the use of the mind, not just the memory. It is a process of discovery, in which the student is the main agent, not the teacher.
Mortimer AdlerRead
Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and endβas if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.
John BerendtRead