20th-century Physiologist Quotes

Andrew Huxley
Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
Charles Brenton Huggins
David H. Hubel
John Zachary Young

One of the characteristics of scientists and their work, curiously enough, is a certain confusion, almost a muddle. This may seem strange if you have come to think of science with a big S as being all clearness and light.

John Zachary Young
John Zachary Young
I am very conscious that there is no scientific explanation for the fact that we are conscious.

Andrew Huxley
Andrew Huxley
Those who think 'Science is Measurement' should search Darwin's works for numbers and equations.

David H. Hubel
David H. Hubel
But he was also a man with great personal magnetism and considerable charm. ['The goal of this presentation', he confided to me before a 12 minute talk describing our work, 'is to impress, rather than inform.'] There were those who misjudged all of this as arrogance.

A scientist is one who, when he does not know the answer, is rigorously disciplined to speak up and say so unashamedly; which is the essential feature by which modern science is distinguished from primitive superstition, which knew all the answers except how to say, "I do not know."

Research in neurophysiology is much more like paddling a small canoe on a mountain river. The river which is fed by many distant springs carries you along all right, though often in a peculiar direction. You have to paddle quite hard to keep afloat. And sooner or later some of your ideas are upset and are carried downstream like an upturned canoe.

Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
Because of the confusion surrounding the term "agnosticism," it would seem better to use the very similar term "rationalism" in its place when referring to the original Huxleyan meaning of the term. The use of "rationalist" for "agnostic" would also seem to be less ambiguous.

I am fully convinced that medical research can offer one a happy and productive life. And if one has a little Viking spirit he can explore the world and people as no one else can do. The whole medical research area is wide open for exploration.

If only a small fraction of what is already known about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive, that material would promptly be banned.

There are two kinds of scientists — The "gee whiz" kind and the "so what" kind. Flies around the urine cause the first type to exclaim: "Gee whiz, what could that mean?" whereas the other says: "so what, let's clean up this mess and get on with a proper experiment."

Charles Brenton Huggins
Charles Brenton Huggins