Scientific American

“ Now, what effect has this unfair distribution of studies produced upon American science? Plainly, a very bad effect. Our scientific men must be recruited mainly from among the ranks of our college graduates, and hence the latter ought to be imbued with something of the scientific spirit. ”

“ Men to-day enter scientific pursuits for the same reason that they formerly entered the military service—because every emphasis is laid on scientific endeavor. The nineteenth century scientist is the logical outcome of the nineteenth century desires for scientific progress. ”

“ In the subjects of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemistry, vegetable and animal physiology, psychology and morality, and the more concrete subjects depending upon them, such as politics, trade, commerce, government, &c., our ideas have equally advanced, in consequence of scientific research ”

“ Prominent attention has been also devoted to those various sciences which help to a better understanding of the nature of man, to the bearings of science upon the questions of society and government, to scientific education, and to the conflicts which spring from the progressive nature of scientific knowledge. ”

“ After 1990, the usage of the title ‘Scientific European’ discontinued but the publication continued in the name of Spektrum. In 2005, Scientific European appeared as a science blog. It started in May 2005 which discontinued after month of August in the same year. Publication of Scientific European as a serial in print and online format began in 2017 from United Kingdom. The first issue, as a monthly popular science magazine appeared in January 2018. Since then, the publication is continuing. Scientific European is not related to Scientific American Monthly. ”

“ Thus it will be with the Scientific American; hundreds of people will wish for it in vain, when the first numbers are out. In anticipation of this circumstance, we shall print a few hundred more copies than are as yet ordered ”

“ The general aspect in which scientific research is viewed by many persons in this country, is that of a refined intellectual pursuit, which may be encouraged and honoured for the purpose of maintaining the tone of society. ”

“ In this country the success of the few eminent men of science has resulted from the accidental combination of a few more or less fortuitous circumstances, and their own great natural determination, and not from legitimate and just support. ”

“ At the present moment civilized society stands at a point in the development of the applications of science to human interests, at which the thing of the highest importance is the subjection of societal phenomena to scientific investigation, together with the elimination of metaphysics from this entire domain. ”

“ Now, sir, I maintain that the true spirit of scientific research—incarnate before us in our honored guest—embracing as it does zeal in search for truth, devotion to duty which such a search imposes, faith in good as the normal and necessary result of such a search that such a spirit is, at this moment, one of the most needed elements in the political progress of our country. ”

“ I make bold to say that the greatest want of the day, from a purely practical point of view, is the more general introduction of the scientific method and the scientific spirit into the discussion of those political and social problems which we encounter on our road to a higher plane of public well being. ”

“ It has fallen out that, by turning its thoughts toward becoming a science, politics, like political economy, has joined its literature to those books of natural science which boast a brief authority, and then make way for what is ‘latest.’ Unless it be of the constitution of those rare books which mark an epoch in scientific thought, a ‘scientific work’ may not expect to outlive the prevailing fashion in ladies’ wraps. ”

“ But then we are to remember that these relations to science are for the few and not for the many. The many simply enjoy the material fruit without enjoying the glorious intellectual quest that finds the fruit, do you say? Yes, but the many may enjoy the ennobling effect upon the intellect of those large conclusions to which science leads the scientific man. ”

“ But at any rate they do for science that which nations can do, and individuals cannot; and they seek for scientific truths in a manner suitable to the respect now professed for science and to the progress which its methods have made. ”

“ Not withstanding this, the scientific scholars of America, both the home-born and the adopted sons, have manfully paid for their culture, and done honour to the land. This is true of men in all departments of science, from that which searches the deeps of the sky to that which explores the shallows of the sea. Individuals, States, and the nation, have all done themselves honour by the scientists researches and discoveries that have been made. ”

“ Does this mean that his penetration in the sciences of man exceeded so greatly his grasp of natural science, or does it mean that the progress of mankind in the scientific knowledge and regulation of human affairs has remained almost stationary for over two thousand years? ”

“ This is why the empiricism and pragmatism of science are vital, and why when scientific results affect us all, and speak against powerful political and financial interests, the openness and rigour of the process become ever more important. ”

“ A liberal education requires an acquaintance with scientific methods, with the modes of inquiry, of observation, of comparison, of eliminating error and of ascertaining truth, which are observed by modern investigators. ”

“ The liberal space at our disposal will permit us, at any rate for the present, to accommodate both classes of workers, without risk of the extermination of either. Meanwhile I have, then, to occupy your time with a few words on two subjects: on biological research, and on biological teaching.
One hears a good deal talked nowadays of scientific research, and among it a good deal of what I cannot but think mischievous nonsense about the peculiar powers required by scientific investigators. ”

“ The greatest obstacle to the discovery of new knowledge in this country, lies in a wide spread ignorance of the dependence of human welfare upon scientific research. I propose therefore to show in a brief manner, that the essential starting-point of human progress, lies in scientific discovery ”

“ In the fields of scientific discovery and of material results human achievements, especially during the past century, have reached almost into the realm of the marvelous; but in many other fields—those relating to human reason, to knowledge of the human mind, to the relation between man and man, and to the science of government—human progress has been so slight that man's efforts in these directions must still receive the verdict of failure. ”

“ Such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recals some well-known scientific phrase. If society is thus prepared to receive all kinds of scientific doctrines, it is our part to provide for the diffusion and cultivation, not only of true scientific principles, but of a spirit of sound criticism, founded on an examination of the evidences on which statements apparently scientific depend. ”

“ But most or all of these reasons have been seen to be of a kind which hold out a good promise for the future, and thereby afford an ample encouragement to the use of a strictly logical method in political investigations, and to the attempt to create a scientific structure of ever-increasing completeness in this region, as well as in others more familiarly associated with the name of Science. ”

“ The influence of the scientific spirit is now rapidly spreading in every field of human activity. Social progress, it is felt, must be guided and accompanied by accurate knowledge,—knowledge which is, in many departments, not yet open to the English reader. ”

“ The additional fact that all the greatest scientific men who have ever existed have pursued research, and sacrificed much for it, is a practical proof that they also approved of its encouragement.
That research should be promoted is further the opinion of many men learned in politics, literature, art, and science. ”

“ For ages past we derived the benefit of scientific principles without a knowledge of their existence. We trod in the beaten paths of experience ignorant of the truth that we were acting in unison with fixed and certain laws. ”

“ It is the aim of the authors of these essays to present the results of experience in scientific investigation, to illustrate by concrete examples the sources of progress in a few departments of knowledge and so make clear to the layman the position of research as a factor in national prosperity. ”

“ The fact also that the discoveries of science usually precede the developments of the moral advantages of science to mankind, is in harmony with the general truth that effects follow their causes, and with the conclusion that moral rules and moral progress have a scientific basis. ”

“ By showing the moral influence of experimental research in imparting "the scientific spirit;" promoting a love of truth; dispelling ignorance and superstition; detecting error; imparting certainty and accuracy to our knowledge; inculcating obedience to law; producing uniformity of belief; aiding economy and cleanliness, promoting humanity, &c, &c. ”

“ Scientists start from hunches, examine available data, advance tentative conclusions, test them in the light of wider observations, and round out their research by formulating general principles or "laws." This scientific approach has been used in many fields of observation and study. I am applying the formula to one aspect of social history: the appearance, development, maturity, decline and disappearance of the vast co-ordinations of collective, experimental human effort called civilizations. ”

“ For this reason, if on no higher ground, we have claimed that it is both the interest and the duty of the State to foster and reward scientific investigation. The time is not far distant, if it is not already at hand, when the scientific culture of a people will be one of the chief factors in determining its position among the nations of the world. ”

“ The end, the aim, the test of science, as a model man understands the word, is foretelling by means of "laws," and my error in attempting a complete "scientific" forecast of human affairs arose in too careless an assent to the ideas about me, and from accepting uncritically such claims as that history should be "scientific," and that economics and sociology (for example) are "sciences." Directly one gauges the fuller implications of that uniqueness of individuals Darwin's work has so permanently illuminated, one passes beyond that. ”

“ As there exists at the present time in this country a considerable degree of uneasiness in the public mind respecting our ability to maintain our position in the race of progress, and as our future success as a nation depends largely upon science, it is desirable to call attention to the great public importance of new scientific knowledge, and to the means of promoting its development. ”

“ That mental progress is advanced by scientific discovery is a common circumstance. Our ideas of facts, our knowledge of general principles, our views of man, of nature, and of the Universe; and even our modes of thought, have been gradually and profoundly changed by the new knowledge acquired by means of scientific research. This truth is capable of being most extensively illustrated by a multitude of facts in the whole of the sciences, and in the arts, manufactures, and other subjects dependent upon science. ”

“ So, too, may it be objected to all encroachments of scientific principles upon old forms and customs. Nevertheless, science continues to analyze and demonstrate, and the world continues to come more and more under its guidance every year. ”

“ Its objects are:—To give a stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific inquiry—to promote the intercourse of those, who cultivate science in different parts of the British Empire, with one another and with foreign philosophers—to obtain a more general attention to the objects of science, and a removal of any disadvantages of a public kind which impede its progress. ”

“ This, slowly to be sure, turned the energies of mankind in a new direction, led to the substitution of inquiry and patient experimentation for assumption and disputation, and in time produced a scientific and industrial revolution which has changed the whole nature of the older problems. The scientific spirit has to-day come to dominate all lines of human thinking, and the applications of scientific principles have, in the past century, completely changed almost all the conditions surrounding human life. ”

“ In gathering up the results of these investigations, it must be stated that in showing their relation to science there is no thought of any detraction from the nobility and greatness of scientific labor and achievement in the material world—that is grand almost beyond expression. ”

“ What we want is so wide a diffusion of scientific ideas that there shall be a class of men engaged in studying economic problems for their own sake, and an intelligent public able to judge what they are doing. ”

“ There is a spirit of improvement awakened in this country in regard to scientific investigation which I doubt not will be stimulated into more active exercise by the visit of our illustrious friend, which will induce men who, by the exercise of peculiar talents, have accumulated wealth, to endow institutions for the special cultivation of scientific investigation, and to set apart with liberal support as the priests or interpreters of Nature, those who by special mental endowment are capable of benefiting their fellow-men by the discovery of new principles. ”