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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index P > Michael Polanyi Quotes

Michael Polanyi
(1891 - 1976)

Hungarian-British philosopher.

Science Quotes by Michael Polanyi (3 quotes)

Almost every major systematic error which has deluded men for thousands of years relied on practical experience. Horoscopes, incantations, oracles, magic, witchcraft, the cures of witch doctors and of medical practitioners before the advent of modern medicine, were all firmly established through the centuries in the eyes of the public by their supposed practical successes. The scientific method was devised precisely for the purpose of elucidating the nature of things under more carefully controlled conditions and by more rigorous criteria than are present in the situations created by practical problems.
— Michael Polanyi
Personal Knowledge (1958), 183.
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Nobody knows more than a tiny fragment of science well enough to judge its validity and value at first hand. For the rest he has to rely on views accepted at second hand on the authority of a community of people accredited as scientists. But this accrediting depends in its turn on a complex organization. For each member of the community can judge at first hand only a small number of his fellow members, and yet eventually each is accredited by all. What happens is that each recognizes as scientists a number of others by whom he is recognized as such in return, and these relations form chains which transmit these mutual recognitions at second hand through the whole community. This is how each member becomes directly or indirectly accredited by all. The system extends into the past. Its members recognize the same set of persons as their masters and derive from this allegiance a common tradition, of which each carries on a particular strand.
— Michael Polanyi
Personal Knowledge (1958), 163.
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The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.
— Michael Polanyi
Personal Knowledge (1958), 208.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledgment (13)  |  Amount (153)  |  Authority (99)  |  Availability (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Belief (615)  |  Case (102)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Directly (25)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Few (15)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hold (96)  |  Justification (52)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Majority (68)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Secondhand (6)  |  Standing (11)  |  Through (846)  |  Trust (72)  |  Widely (9)



Quotes by others about Michael Polanyi (1)

In Melvin Calvin’s office there were four photographs: Michael Polanyi, Joel Hildebrand, Gilbert N. Lewis, and Ernest O. Lawrence. These scientists were his mentors: Polanyi for introducing him to the chemistry of phthalocyanine; Hildebrand for bringing him to Berkeley; Lewis, perhaps his most influential teacher; and Lawrence, who provided him the opportunity to work with the new scientific tool of radioactive carbon, which enabled the search for the path of carbon in photosynthesis to be successful.
Co-author with Marilyn Taylor and Robert E. Connick, obituary, 'Melvin Calvin', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (Dec 2000), 144, No. 4, 454.
Science quotes on:  |  Berkeley (3)  |  Biography (254)  |  Melvin Calvin (11)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon-14 (2)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Enable (122)  |  Joel H. Hildebrand (17)  |  Influential (4)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Introduced (3)  |  Ernest Orlando Lawrence (5)  |  Gilbert Newton Lewis (11)  |  Mentor (3)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Office (71)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Path (159)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Search (175)  |  Successful (134)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Tool (129)  |  Work (1402)


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)
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- 90 -
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Ibn Khaldun
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- 70 -
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- 50 -
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Alfred Wegener
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- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
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Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
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- 30 -
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Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
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Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
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Michael Faraday
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- 10 -
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John Watson
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