ON SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
"1. It is difficult to attach even a precise meaning to the term 'scientific truth.' Thus the meaning of the word 'truth' varies according to whether we deal with a fact of experience , a mathematical proposition, or a scientific theory. 'Religious truth' conveys nothing clear to me at all.
"2. Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect. Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality and intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.
"3. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience is my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as 'pantheistic ' (Spinoza).
"4. Denominational traditions I can only consider historically and psychologically ; they have no other significance for me."
P.261-262, IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein (1954, 1982)
Saturday, December 27, 2014
SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
Image from http://www.deism.com/images/Einstein_laughing.jpeg.
ON SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
"1. It is difficult to attach even a precise meaning to the term 'scientific truth.' Thus the meaning of the word 'truth' varies according to whether we deal with a fact of experience , a mathematical proposition, or a scientific theory. 'Religious truth' conveys nothing clear to me at all.
"2. Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect. Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality and intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.
"3. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience is my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as 'pantheistic ' (Spinoza).
"4. Denominational traditions I can only consider historically and psychologically ; they have no other significance for me."
P.261-262, IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein (1954, 1982)
ON SCIENTIFIC TRUTH
"1. It is difficult to attach even a precise meaning to the term 'scientific truth.' Thus the meaning of the word 'truth' varies according to whether we deal with a fact of experience , a mathematical proposition, or a scientific theory. 'Religious truth' conveys nothing clear to me at all.
"2. Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect. Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality and intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.
"3. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience is my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as 'pantheistic ' (Spinoza).
"4. Denominational traditions I can only consider historically and psychologically ; they have no other significance for me."
P.261-262, IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein (1954, 1982)