TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Politics is more difficult than physics.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Incontrovertible

Incontrovertible Quotes (8 quotes)

Changes, cyclic or otherwise, within the solar system or within our galaxy, would seem to be the easy and incontrovertible solution for everything that I have found remarkable in the stratigraphical record.
In The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (1973), 83.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Cyclic (3)  |  Easy (213)  |  Everything (489)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Record (161)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Solution (282)  |  Stratigraphy (7)  |  System (545)

I submit a body of facts which cannot be invalidated. My opinions may be doubted, denied, or approved, according as they conflict or agree with the opinions of each individual who may read them; but their worth will be best determined by the foundation on which they rest—the incontrovertible facts.
Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion (1833), Preface.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Best (467)  |  Body (557)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Digestion (29)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Individual (420)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Read (308)  |  Rest (287)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)

In the early days of dealing with climate change, I wouldn’t go out on a limb one way or another, because I don’t have the qualifications there. But I do have the qualifications to measure the scientific community and see what the consensus is about climate change. I remember the moment when I suddenly thought it was incontrovertible. There was a lecture given by a distinguished American expert in atmospheric science and he showed a series of graphs about the temperature changes in the upper atmosphere. He plotted time against population growth and industrialisation. It was incontrovertible, and once you think it’s really totally incontrovertible, then you have a responsibility to say so.
From interview with Brian Cox and Robert Ince, in 'A Life Measured in Heartbeats', New Statesman (21 Dec 2012), 141, No. 5138, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Community (111)  |  Consensus (8)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Early (196)  |  Expert (67)  |  Graph (8)  |  Growth (200)  |  Industrialisation (4)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Measure (241)  |  Moment (260)  |  Population (115)  |  Population Growth (9)  |  Qualification (15)  |  Remember (189)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Series (153)  |  Show (353)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

It is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people’s minds, with their sense of how we all came to be. But you know, if you are a believer in God, it’s hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.
From video of interview with Huffington post reporter at the 2014 Davos Annual Meeting, World Economic Forum (25 Jan 2014). On web page 'Dr. Francis Collins: “There Is An Uneasiness” About Evolution'
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Believer (26)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Disbelief (4)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  God (776)  |  Hard (246)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sense (785)  |  Somehow (48)  |  State (505)

The ancestors of the higher animals must be regarded as one-celled beings, similar to the Amœbæ which at the present day occur in our rivers, pools, and lakes. The incontrovertible fact that each human individual develops from an egg, which, in common with those of all animals, is a simple cell, most clearly proves that the most remote ancestors of man were primordial animals of this sort, of a form equivalent to a simple cell. When, therefore, the theory of the animal descent of man is condemned as a “horrible, shocking, and immoral” doctrine, tho unalterable fact, which can be proved at any moment under the microscope, that the human egg is a simple cell, which is in no way different to those of other mammals, must equally be pronounced “horrible, shocking, and immoral.”
Translated from his Ueber die Entstehung und den Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts, (1873), Vol. 2, as an epigraph to Chap. 6, The Evolution of Man, (1879), Vol 1, 120-121.
Science quotes on:  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cell (146)  |  Common (447)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Descent (30)  |  Descent Of Man (6)  |  Develop (278)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Egg (71)  |  Equally (129)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Higher (37)  |  Horrible (10)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immoral (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Lake (36)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pool (16)  |  Present (630)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Pronounce (11)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remote (86)  |  River (140)  |  Shocking (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unalterable (7)  |  Way (1214)

The mere existence of nuclear weapons by the thousands is an incontrovertible sign of human insanity.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Existence (481)  |  Human (1512)  |  Insanity (8)  |  Mere (86)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Sign (63)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

The vital act is the act of participation. “Participator” is the incontrovertible new concept given by quantum mechanics. It strikes down the term “observer” of classical theory, the man who stands safely behind the thick glass wall and watches what goes on without taking part. It can’t be done, quantum mechanics says.
In Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, 'Beyond the Edge of Time', Gravitation (1973), Part 3, 1217.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Behind (139)  |  Classical (49)  |  Classical Theory (2)  |  Concept (242)  |  Down (455)  |  Glass (94)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Participation (15)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Safe (61)  |  Say (989)  |  Stand (284)  |  Strike (72)  |  Term (357)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Vital (89)  |  Wall (71)  |  Watch (118)

Thus far I have produced a various and, in my judgement, incontrovertible body of facts, to show that the whole earth has been subjected to a recent and universal inundation.
Reliquire Diluvianae (1824), 224.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Flood (52)  |  Produced (187)  |  Recent (78)  |  Show (353)  |  Subject (543)  |  Universal (198)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.