(source)
|
John Kenneth Galbraith
(15 Oct 1908 - 29 Apr 2006)
Canadian-American economist , who was one of the most influential in his field through the post World War II era. He wrote many books on economics, including The Affluent Society (1958) and Money (1975).
|
Science Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith (10 quotes)
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
A Contemporary Guide to Economics, Peace, and Laughter (1971), 50.
Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are rarely missed. In the absence of new developments, old ones may seem very impressive for quite a long while.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
The Affluent Society (1958), 127.
It is a commonplace of modern technology that problems have solutions before there is knowledge of how they are to be solved.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In The New Industrial State (1977).
Models so constructed, though of no practical value, serve a useful academic function. The oldest problem in economic education is how to exclude the incompetent. The requirement that there be an ability to master difficult models, including ones for which mathematical competence is required, is a highly useful screening device.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In Economics, Peace, and Laughter (1981), 40-41.
Prolonged commitment to mathematical exercises in economics can be damaging. It leads to the atrophy of judgement and intuition which are indispensable for real solutions and, on occasion, leads also to a habit of mind which simply excludes the mathematically inconvenient factors from consideration.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In Economics, Peace, and Laughter (1981), 41, footnote.
She is a reflection of comfortable middle-class values that do not take seriously the continuing unemployment. What I particularly regret is that she does not take seriously the intellectual decline. Having given up the Empire and the mass production of industrial goods, Britain's future lay in its scientific and artistic pre-eminence. Mrs Thatcher will be long remembered for the damage she has done.
On Mrs Margaret H. Thatcher.
On Mrs Margaret H. Thatcher.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
The Guardian, 15 Oct 1988.
Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In 'The Imperatives of Technology', The New Industrial State (1967), Chap. 2, 12.
The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In The New Industrial State (1967), 62.
There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbable enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal and impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In The New Industrial State (1967), 208.
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
In 'For Public and Potent Building', The New York Times Magazine (9 Oct 1960), M34.
Quotes by others about John Kenneth Galbraith (1)
Some years ago John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in an essay on his efforts at writing a history of economics: “As one approaches the present, one is filled with a sense of hopelessness; in a year and possibly even a month, there is now more economic comment in the supposedly serious literature than survives from the whole of the thousand years commonly denominated as the Middle Ages … anyone who claims to be familiar with it all is a confessing liar.” I believe that all physicists would subscribe to the same sentiments regarding their own professional literature. I do at any rate.
In H. Henry Stroke, 'The Physical Review Then and Now', Physical Review: The First Hundred Years: a Selection of Seminal Papers and Commentaries, Vol. 1, 1.
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) -- 
