Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.
Karl PearsonRead
The scientific method of examining facts is not peculiar to one class of phenomena and to one class of workers; it is applicable to social as well as to physical problems, and we must carefully guard ourselves against supposing that the scientific frame of mind is a peculiarity of the professional scientist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The scientific method can be applied to both social and physical issues, not just by scientists.
Karl Pearson emphasizes the universality of the scientific method, arguing that it should be used by anyone examining facts across various spheres, including social and physical problems. He warns against the misconception that only professional scientists possess a scientific mindset, suggesting that critical thinking and empirical analysis are vital skills that everyone can and should apply in their everyday lives.
Themes
Scientific MethodScienceAnalysisFactsSocial ProblemsCritical Thinking
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on critical thinking, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of the scientific method beyond just laboratory settings.
More from Karl Pearson
All quotes →If I have put the case of science at all correctly, the reader will have recognised that modern science does much more than demand that it shall be left in undisturbed possession of what the theologian and metaphysician please to term its 'legitimate field'. It claims that the whole range of phenomena, mental as well as physical-the entire universe-is its field. It asserts that the scientific method is the sole gateway to the whole region of knowledge.
Karl PearsonRead
All great scientists have, in a certain sense, been great artists; the man with no imagination may collect facts, but he cannot make great discoveries.
Karl PearsonRead
The classification of facts and the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of this classification-judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind-essentially sum up the aim and method of modern science. The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own.
Karl PearsonRead
Statistics is the grammar of science.
Karl PearsonRead
That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.
Karl PearsonRead
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