Scientific evidence

“ In each of these subjects, we first, either with or without the aid of experiment, make observations, record facts, compare them, and draw conclusions from our comparisons; we also group the facts, and the conclusions, in every possible way, and then draw other conclusions; we also analyse, combine, and permutate the various truths arrived at, and cross examine the evidence in every possible manner in order to extract from it the greatest amount of new knowledge. ”

“ If it be admitted in general terms that the evidence collected and marshalled up to the present time has established among sure scientific facts so much of the past of humanity, this achievement is but the beginning of toil. ”

“ The men who come to these conclusions are not only the ignorant, nor the over-credulous, but frequently representative leaders in scientific thought--men who are known to be thoroughly capable of weighing evidence, prominent lawyers and judges, above all, men who are accustomed to investigation as most painstaking scientists and faithful students of nature. ”

“ It is the absence of direct evidence that, not only in the science of Folklore, but also in the physical sciences, causes resort to the evidence afforded by comparison of other structures and processes. ”

“ The answer which the man of science returns to this question, as to what is the use of his discovery, is, ‘I only tell you what is the interest of that discovery, that interest which compels and impels me to go on in the path of investigation.’ It is knowledge, mere knowledge of the facts and laws of nature, that the scientific mind seeks to gain. ”

“ The popular idea of scientific investigation is a vehement, aimless collection of little facts, collected as a bower bird collects shells and pebbles, in methodical little rows, and out of this process, in some manner unknown to the popular mind, certain conjuring tricks—the celebrated “wonders of science”—in a sort of accidental way emerge. ”

“ In the earlier stage of physical research, all observation and experiment lead forward to general results, which gain ready acceptance because they may be said to be involved in scientific procedure itself. ”

“ No science has been allowed to rest its claims upon mere theory, or authority of any kind, but upon evidence derived from facts. Mere opinions and suppositions have been rigidly excluded; and that alone which was acquired by accurate investigation, has been acknowledged in science as having the stamp of truth. ”

“ The tests which we are making are given for the advancement of science and for the information of the person tested. By scientific means we will be able to separate characteristics derived from heredity and environment and to treat each class separately. ”

“ Science being proved truth, scientific method requires that all the factors which concern the subject of research shall be duly considered, in order to arrive at correct thought respecting the special subject of inquiry. ”

“ The other approach made by reason to see whether a theory is true or false is the experimental one, that of positive evidence. You test, by the positive evidence at your disposal, whether the thing affirmed has really taken place or not. ”

“ First comes hypothesis, then the accumulation of data, finally, when all available evidence is in, rejection and the adoption of fresh hypothesis, or modification, or verification. “A bundle of disconnected facts is only the raw material for an investigation: their mere collection is the very earliest stage in the process; and even while collecting them there is nearly always some system, some place, some idea under trial.” [16] The spiritual contents of the physical universe are, in part, evolution, the ether, the atom and such like. ”

“ In order to attain truth respecting biology, therefore, the facts concerning sensation and consciousness, and their relation with, or the way in which these new factors modify the facts of, physics and chemistry, must be carefully considered in this higher state, which we call life, or the investigation is not scientific, no matter how interesting as an intellectual exercise. ”

“ I replied truthfully, "even before my experience of this evening went so far toward convincing me. But, with the examples I have seen, I felt that true scientific control was lacking. With all their science, most of the investigators trust too greatly." ”

“ We see in many of the brute creation the exercise of one, at least, of the same powers of reasoning as that which we ourselves employ.
The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. ”

“ They know that men of science throughout the world subject each other’s results to the most searching examination; and that error is mercilessly exposed and rejected as soon as discovered. And, finally, they know that still more conclusive testimony is to be found in the daily verification of scientific predictions, and in the never-ceasing triumphs of those arts which Science guides. ”

“ Without such an understanding of the methods employed in the investigation the reader can only blindly accept or as blindly reject what purports to be the logical inference from well-established evidence. ”

“ I shall endeavour to show you that there is one kind of evidence which is neutral, which neither helps evolution nor is inconsistent with it. I shall then bring forward a second kind of evidence which indicates a strong probability in favour of evolution, but does not prove it; and, lastly, I shall adduce a third kind of evidence which, being as complete as any evidence which we can hope to obtain upon such a subject, and being wholly and strikingly in favour of evolution, may fairly be called demonstrative evidence of its occurrence. ”

“ But in doing so, they do not seem to perceive the difference between the method by which they obtain their knowledge and the process of modern scientific investigation by which the facts of nature are ascertained and its laws are discovered. ”

“ If, as a matter of observation and inference, we have reason to believe that there is such a tendency, science simply accepts the fact, and endeavours to formulate the conditions under which it arises, and to trace its observed or inferred antecedents. No doubt many of us find it difficult or impossible to rest content with the strictly scientific position, that of unquestioning acceptance of the facts of nature as we find them given in experience. ”

“ Add to this the fact that every conclusion is not only based upon these fundamental scientific principles, but has been carefully verified by investigation and observation in not only hundreds but thousands of cases, and has been used daily for years under the trying conditions of actual commercial practice, and this science has passed out of the merely experimental stage. ”

“ The fact that science is capable of being resolved into separate processes of verification, is that which renders it possible to form a great body of scientific truth, by adding together a vast number of truths, of which many men, at various times and by multiplied efforts, have satisfied themselves. ”

“ But I would like to call attention here to what appears to me a fundamental condition of scientific work and thereby a necessary result of scientific training. Science is naught if not exact. Accurate observation, accurate record, accurate deduction from data, all of which may be reduced to simple, plain honesty. Anything else is error, not science. ”

“ Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and justified by Science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence.... If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence to prove that any form of life can be developed out of matter, without demonstrable antecedent life.... [men of science] will frankly admit their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be developed, save from demonstrable antecedent life. ”

“ Quite apart from the more physical investigations, where statistical methods yield more concrete and definite results, he has utilized direct experimentation where that has been possible, has cited the larger records of history, of literature, and of the more technical portions of psychology and biology. It must forever remain true that advance in this field of comparative psychology must make use of arguments by analogy, of parallelisms, assisted by direct reinforcement of evidence from the investigations of animal life, from the study of the abnormal, from the lessons of history. ”

“ That science must extend its investigations to human organism, admits of no doubt; that by means of this investigation all the phenomena of human life will be traced to organism, is the very thing to be proved, and until established on clear and full evidence is not to be regarded otherwise than problematic. If we are in this matter to be influenced by regard to the slow and difficult procedure in cases of much greater simplicity, we shall be guarded in the utterance of expectations ”

“ As science searches for causes with their relations, and is proved knowledge, so no branch of knowledge or method of acquiring knowledge can be considered scientific which contradicts any facts of Nature, or which bases its methods on the destruction of those facts. ”

“ The legitimate aim of all systematic, exact experiments is to lay a foundation of well-ascertained and closely related facts on which may be developed a superstructure of science to supersede the theoretical speculations which form an important part of the prelude of scientific discovery. ”

“ Such a consideration 'affords an unusually fruitful opportunity to witness the ways in which science progresses, forming hypotheses, testing them and then retaining, rejecting or refining them, as the evidence derived from observation and experiment warrants. Of the subject before us there are still many gaps in our knowledge, and these gaps must be filled. Present knowledge is never final, and our present ideas of what constitutes fresh air may yet require revision. ”

“ Nevertheless, patient research and advanced science have enabled us to intelligently study and investigate, and from the evidence thus gained, to state facts and formulate opinions that may perhaps outlast criticism. ”

“ Nearly all our medical and surgical knowledge has been obtained by observation and study, either of the results of experiments made by ourselves, or by the course of nature for us; and the former is often attended by immeasurably less pain and expence than the latter. No one who has ever made in a proper manner new experiments, would venture to assert that valuable knowledge is not gained by them; and this statement is as correct of experiments in physiology as in all the other sciences. ”

“ Modern investigation proceeding on scientific lines and by means of actual experience and experiment, seems to provide an explanation—mental and moral—for manifestations which our ancestors regarded as physical and material. ”

“ We recognize that the modern scientist, with his trained powers of observation and his elaborate facilities for eliminating the adventitious in his experiments, is in a position to judge impartially with regard to such subjects. More than this, his life has usually been spent in making such syntheses of evidence for and against the significance of facts, as should enable him to be a proper judge. ”

“ The stage of investigation now reached requires us to consider recent advances in our knowledge of more complicated organisms. This leads into the line of observation disclosing steadily advancing complexity of structure, and brings us into contact with the claim that man be included within the area of scientific inquiry, and regarded as a more fully organized life to which lower orders are not only pointing, but actually tending. ”

“ But their aim has been to collect and sift evidence, and determine particular facts; comparatively few have given serious thought to the lines of research and the speculations which have been considered in this paper. They have been reasonably shy of compromising their work by applying theories which are still much debated and immature. ”

“ For evidence in favour of this view we must take a rapid survey of the whole domain of human science, and test the chief departments of it to see how far they contain, on the one hand, objective knowledge and facts, and on the other, subjective knowledge and hypotheses. ”

“ And, in truth, there is scarcely any investigation in the whole body of a science requiring so high a degree of analysis and abstraction, as the inquiry, what the science itself is; in other words, what are the properties common to all the truths composing it, and distinguishing them from all other truths. ”

“ Yet it has appeared in the preceding remarks that hypotheses rightly used are among the helps, far more than the dangers, of science;—that scientific induction is not a ‘cautious’ or a ‘rigorous’ process in the sense of abstaining from such suppositions, but in not adhering to them till they are confirmed by fact, and in carefully seeking from facts confirmation or refutation. ”

“ In every department of science, when prosecuted far enough, these two great steps of investigation must succeed each other. The laws of phenomena must be known before we can speculate concerning causes; the causes must be inquired into when the phenomena have been 128 reduced to rule. In both these speculations the suppositions and conceptions which occur must be constantly tested by reference to observation and experiment. ”

“ Such hypotheses as, from the conditions of the case, can neither be proved nor disproved by direct evidence or experiment, are to be tested only indirectly, and therefore imperfectly, by trying their power to harmonize the known facts, and to account for what is otherwise unaccountable. ”

“ I am dealing with a question on which minds accustomed to weigh the value of experimental evidence are alone competent to decide, and regarding which, in its present condition, minds so trained are as capable of forming an opinion as regarding the phenomena of magnetism or radiant heat. 'The germ theory of disease,' it has been said, 'appertains to the biologist and the physician.' Where, I would ask in reply, is the biologist or physician, whose researches, in connection with this subject, could for one instant be compared to those of the chemist Pasteur? ”