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Sir William Petty
(26 May 1623 - 16 Dec 1687)
English economist, statistician and physician who was a co-founder of the Royal Society and was a proponent of its empirical scientific doctrines. He was one of originators of political arithmetic, by which arithmetic was applied to affairs of government, a basis for economics.
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Science Quotes by Sir William Petty (1 quote)
The method I take to do this is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetic I have long aimed at) to express myself in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature.
— Sir William Petty
From Essays in Political Arithmetic (1679, 1755), 98.
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) -- 
