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Quotable Quotes
One cynical sage wrote, “The reason we use quotations is because we
have no bright ideas of our own.” While there may be a kernel of
truth in that opinion, it is also true that writings about
scientific inquiry conjure up many thought-provoking ideas.
Sometimes a paragraph in a book can stir our creative thinking. Or
maybe a quote from a famous person leaves us nodding our head in
agreement. Or a one-liner gives us an insight that sends our
imaginations soaring. This section, Quotable Quotes, includes many
such ideas…ideas from famous scientists and inventors, ideas from
scholars and teachers, ideas from children. We have divided them
into five major categories: Inquiry, Investigation, Design
Technology, Classroom Teaching and Learning, and Science in General.
Although the groupings are arbitrary with quotes that blur across
titles, many are, in fact, pearls of wisdom that open windows in our
minds. It is well worth our time to read, think, and apply them to
the teaching of science.
Inquiry
Students at all grade levels and in every domain of science should
have the opportunity to use scientific inquiry and develop the
ability to think and act in ways associated with inquiry, including
asking questions, planning and conducting investigations, using
appropriate tools and techniques to gather data, thinking critically
and logically about relationships between evidence and explanations,
constructing and analyzing alternative explanations, and
communicating scientific arguments. (National Science Education
Standards, 1996, p. 105)
Equipped with his five senses, man explores
the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. (Edwin
Powel Hubble)
The outcome of any serious research can only be to
make two questions grow where only one grew before. (Thorstein
Veblen)
While science and technology are subjects of interest to
Americans, NSF research reveals that only 27 percent of Americans
understand the nature of scientific inquiry well enough to make
informed judgments about such issues as the environment, nuclear
power and scientific discovery. (Bayer Corporation)
Inquiry into
authentic questions generated from student experiences is the
central strategy for teaching science. (National Science Education
Standards, p. 31)
We have a hunger of the mind which asks for
knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our
desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing. (Maria
Mitchell)
Science inquiry consists of actions in the world that
allow for multiple results. Any activity that is intended to lead to
one result only (or in which the manipulation of the world is such
that possible alternative lines of experimentation are prohibited)
should not be labeled as inquiry. The definition excludes almost all
school laboratory work, since that usually is intended to
demonstrate a concept, not generate novel or diverse activity.
(George E. Hein, Director, Program Evaluation & Research Group,
Lesley College, Cambridge, Massachusetts)
When you make the finding
yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light
- you'll never forget it. (Carl Sagan)
The observer listens to
nature: the experimenter questions and forces her to reveal herself.
(Georges Cuvier)
The first key to wisdom is assiduous and
frequent questioning…for by doubting we come to inquiry, and by
inquiry we arrive at truth. (Peter Abelard)
The process skills
are basic to what learning is all about. They lead us to ask
pertinent questions. They help us to think critically. They are the
intellectual raw materials for problem solving. (Ken Mechling and
Donna Oliver)
Investigation
Children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw
upon their own inferences. They should be told as little as
possible. (Herbert Spencer. Education: Intellectual, Moral, and
Physical. 1864)
Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously
experiment and experience and reexperience again. They select,
combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences -
"which is the mostest? which is the leastest?" They smell, taste,
bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness,
smoothness, coldness, warmness: the heft, shake, punch, squeeze,
push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart. (R. Buckminster
Fuller)
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and
thinking what nobody has thought. (Albert Szent-Gyorgyi)
Theory
guides. Experiment decides. (Donald E. Simanek)
The strongest
arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified
by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the
goal of all speculation. (Roger Bacon)
Every experiment proves
something. If it doesn't prove what you wanted it to prove, it
proves something else. (Anonymous)
The scientific method, so far as
it is a method, is nothing more than doing one's damnedest with
one's mind, no holds barred. (P.W. Bridgman)
Design Technology
The
central activity of engineering, as distinguished from science, is
the design of new devices, processes and systems. (Myron Tribus)
What you need to invent, is an imagination and a pile of junk.
(Thomas Edison)
Real design is done during the unstructured,
informal, noodling around that occurs before the structured and
formal `design' methods are employed. (George Stiny)
I have not
failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that will not work. (Thomas
Edison)
Children’s abilities in technological problem solving can be
developed by firsthand experience in tackling tasks with a
technological purpose. (National Science Education Standards, 1996,
p.135)
In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite
apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it. (Elbert Green Hubbard)
There ain't no rules around here! We're trying to accomplish
something! (Thomas Alva Edison)
The man who makes no mistakes does
not usually make anything. (Edward Phelps)
If I had thought about
it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of
examples that said you can't do this. (Spencer Silver on the work
that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads)
Everything that can be invented has been invented. (Charles H. Duell,
Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899)
There is a correlation
between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the
screwball gladly. (Kingman Brewster)
Invention is a combination of
brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you
need. (Charles F. Kettering)
The most powerful forces that change
the way we live are the applied sparks of insight that we call
invention. (Dr. Robert Jarvik)
Science Teaching and Learning
Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a
fire. (W.B. Yeats)
All children start out as scientists, full of
curiosity and questions about the world around them. Unfortunately,
typical school programs destroy their curiosity before middle
school.” (Carl Sagan quoted by National Research Council, 1998)
Teachers overwhelmingly agree (77 percent) that hands-on activities
that promote inquiry, “hands-on, mind’s on” science, should be used
in the classroom, yet half of them say they are not effectively
trained in using inquiry teaching strategies. (Bayer Facts of
Science Education, 1995)
In science you learn to discover all the
things you thought you could never discover. (Anonymous 4th grade
student)
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern
methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy
curiosity of inquiry. (Albert Einstein)
The whole art of teaching is
only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for
the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. (Anatole France)
In
science, what I like to do best is expirements. (Anonymous 2nd
grader)
When asked about how pre-college science should be taught,
almost nine in ten (86%) Americans say they favor replacing
textbook-based education with hands-on science learning that helps
students develop skills such as critical-thinking, problem-solving
and working collaboratively with others. (Bayer Corporation)
A
teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence
stops. (Henry B. Adams)
You can learn a lot from experiments because
you can see for yourself what happens. (Anonymous 6th grader)
Too
often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems
to solve. (Roger Lewin)
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher
explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher
inspires. (William Arthur Ward)
Science is a way to ask and answer
questions about the world. (Anonymous 4th grader)
Give a man a fish
and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for
a lifetime. (Chinese proverb)
Science is…”figyoring theings oat.”
(Anonymous 1st grader)
Eighty-nine percent of 10-17 year olds say
science lets (them) be very creative. And 89 percent also say the
best way they can learn science is to observe things and do
experiments (themselves). (Bayer Corporation)
Elementary school
science should not be measuring out teaspoons of trivia like measured
doses of castor oil. Rather, to learn science, children must do
science. (Ken Mechling)
To teach is to learn twice. (Joseph Joubert)
Learn avidly. Question repeatedly what you have learned. Analyze it
carefully. Then put what you have learned into practice
intelligently. (Confucius)
Teaching is not about imparting
information. Teaching is about giving students room to learn how to
think for themselves. (Anonymous)
When learning is active, the
learner is seeking something in answer to a question, information to
solve a problem, or a way to do a job. Learning can’t be swallowed
whole. To retain what has been taught, students must chew on it.
(Mel Silberman)
When my students and I discover uncharted territory
to explore, when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us,
when our experience is illuminated by the lightning-life of the
mind—then teaching is the finest work I know. (Parker J. Palmer)
Science in General
Seventy percent of Americans still do not
understand the science processes.” (Michael Shermer, in his book Why
Smart People Believe Weird Things, 2002)
Chance favors the trained
mind. (Louis Pasteur)
Facts are not science—as the dictionary is not
literature. (Martin H. Fischer)
We don't know one millionth of one
percent of anything. (Albert Einstein)
Most institutions demand
unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a
virtue. (Robert K. Merton)
To know that we know what we know, and to
know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true
knowledge. (Copernicus)
Some men see things as they are and say,
"Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" (George
Bernard Shaw)
The aim of education should be to teach us rather how
to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to
enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with
thoughts of other men. (Bill Beattie)
The only real mistake is the
one from which we learn nothing. (John Powell)
Thinking is the
hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few
engage in it. (Henry Ford)
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
(Unknown)
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test
first, the lesson afterwards. (Vernon Saunders Law)
A journey of a
thousand miles begins with a single step. (Lao-Tze)
The best way to
have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. (Linus Pauling) |
