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Sam Lilley
(1914 - )
Irish science historian.
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Science Quotes by Sam Lilley (2 quotes)
Iron, the Democratic Metal
— Sam Lilley
Chapter II heading in Men, Machines and History: A Short History of Tools and Machines in Relation to Social Progress (1948), 20. Quote included as an example. Webmaster found the phrase used half a century earlier in The South Stafforshire Institute of Iron & Steel Works' Managers, Proceedings for the Session 1898-1899 (1900), 14, 13. One explanation of the phrase is: “Iron was the ‘democratic’ metal because a rise in the living standards among larger masses of population was obtainable through its application in tools and implements,” in the Iron Age compared to the earlier Bronze Age. From National Academy of Sciences, Materials and Man's Needs (1975), Vol. 1, 17.
The form of society has a very great effect on the rate of inventions and a form of society which in its young days encourages technical progress can, as a result of the very inventions it engenders, eventually come to retard further progress until a new social structure replaces it. The converse is also true. Technical progress affects the structure of society.
— Sam Lilley
In Men, Machines and History (1948).
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) -- 
