Karl Pearson Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

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.

Karl Pearson
When every fact, every present or past phenomenon of that universe, every phase of present or past life therein, has been examined, classified, and co-ordinated with the rest, then the mission of science will be completed. What is this but saying that the task of science can never end till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases?

Karl Pearson
Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.

Karl Pearson
It is the old experience that a rude instrument in the hand of a master craftsman will achieve more than the finest tool wielded by the uninspired journeyman.

Karl Pearson
'That all science is description and not explanation, that the mystery of change in the inorganic world is just as great and just as omnipresent as in the organic world, are statements which will appear platitudes to the next generation.

Karl Pearson
The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination [elimination of self] in his judgments..

Karl Pearson
If the reader has once fully grasped that science is an intellectual resume of past experience and a mental balancing of the probability of future experience, he will be in no danger of contrasting the "mechanical explanation" of science with the "intellectual description" of mythology.

Karl Pearson
The day I believe will come when its [science's] evangelists will spread through the country, be heard in every house, and be seen on every street preaching and teaching the only faith which is consonant with the reason, with the dignity of man.

Karl Pearson
The unity of all science consists alone in its method, not in its material.

Karl Pearson
The touchstone of science is the universal validity of its results for all normally constituted and duly instructed minds.

Karl Pearson
Science for the past is a description, for the future a belief.

Karl Pearson
The statistician dealing with heredity is like the physicist dealing with the atom, he can say little or nothing of the individual, his knowledge is of the group containing great numbers.

Karl Pearson
Minds trained to scientific methods are less likely to be led by mere appeal to the passions or by blind emotional excitement to sanction acts which in the end may lead to social disaster.

Karl Pearson
The field of science is unlimited; its material is endless, every group of natural phenomena, every phase of social life, every stage of past or present development is material for science.

Karl Pearson
Every great advance of science opens our eyes to facts which we had failed before to observe, and makes new demands on our powers of interpretation.

Karl Pearson
Scientific Law is [a] description, not a prescription.

Karl Pearson
The material of science is coextensive with the whole physical universe, not only that universe as it now exists, but with its past history and the past history of all life therein.

Karl Pearson
Hundreds of men have allowed their imagination to solve the universe, but the men who have contributed to our real understanding of natural phenomena have been those who were unstinted in their application of criticism to the product of their imaginations.

Karl Pearson
The smallest group of facts, if properly classified and logically dealt with, will form a stone which has its proper place in the great building of knowledge, wholly independent of the individual workman who has shaped it.

Karl Pearson
The scientific habit of mind is one which may be acquired by all, and the readiest means of attaining to it ought to be placed within the reach of all.

Karl Pearson