Coherent Quotes (14 quotes)
Catastrophe Theory is—quite likely—the first coherent attempt (since Aristotelian logic) to give a theory on analogy. When narrow-minded scientists object to Catastrophe Theory that it gives no more than analogies, or metaphors, they do not realise that they are stating the proper aim of Catastrophe Theory, which is to classify all possible types of analogous situations.
From 'La Théorie des catastrophes État présent et perspective', as quoted in Erick Christopher Zeeman, (ed.), Catastrophe Theory: Selected Papers, 1972-1977 (1977), 637, as cited in Martin Krampe (ed.), Classics of Semiotics (1987), 214.
I grew up in Japan and Hong Kong and then came to the States. Japan was a huge influence on me because, as a child, I would hear the oxcarts come and collect our sewage at night out of our house from the latrine and then take it off to the farms as fertilizer. And then the food would come back in oxcarts during the day. I always had this sort of “our poop became food” mental model. The idea of “waste equals food” was pretty inculcated, that everything was precious and the systems were coherent and cyclical.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
In physics we have dealt hitherto only with periodic crystals. To a humble physicist’s mind, these are very interesting and complicated objects; they constitute one of the most fascinating and complex material structures by which inanimate nature puzzles his wits. Yet, compared with the aperiodic crystal, they are rather plain and dull. The difference in structure is of the same kind as that between an ordinary wallpaper in which the same pattern is repeated again and again in regular periodicity and a masterpiece of embroidery, say a Raphael tapestry, which shows no dull repetition, but an elaborate, coherent, meaningful design traced by the great master.
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Is it possible that a promiscuous Jumble of Printing Letters should often fall into a Method and Order, which should stamp on Paper a coherent Discourse; or that a blind fortuitous Concourse of Atoms, not guided by an Understanding Agent, should frequently constitute the Bodies of any Species of Animals.
In 'Of Wrong Assent, or Error', An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1706), Book 4, 601.
It is the business of scientists to explain away the magic in the world. The largest coherent body of magic remaining is the behavior of (humans) and animals.
In paper co-authored by William G. Quinn and James L. Gould, 'Nerves and genes', Nature (1 Mar 1979), 278, No. 5699, 23. As partially quoted in Michael F. Roberts and Anne E. Kruchten, Receptor Biology (2016), 238.
Scientists [still] refuse to consider man as an object of scientific scrutiny except through his body. The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 36. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Sometimes I wonder whether there is any such thing as biology. The word was invented rather late—in 1809—and other words like botany, zoology, physiology, anatomy, have much longer histories and in general cover more coherent and unified subject matters. … I would like to see the words removed from dictionaries and college catalogues. I think they do more harm than good because they separate things that should not be separated…
In The Forest and the Sea (1960), 6-7.
The body of science is not, as it is sometimes thought, a huge coherent mass of facts, neatly arranged in sequence, each one attached to the next by a logical string. In truth, whenever we discover a new fact it involves the elimination of old ones. We are always, as it turns out, fundamentally in error.
In 'On Science and Certainty', Discover Magazine (Oct 1980)
The confirmation of theories relies on the compact adaption of their parts, by which, like those of an arch or dome, they mutually sustain each other, and form a coherent whole.
As quoted in J.F.W. Herschel, A Treatise on Astronomy (1833), 4. With the original Latin, “Theoriarum vires, arcta et quasi se mutuo sustinente partium adaptatione, quâ, quasi in orbem cohaerent, firmantur.”
The critical mathematician has abandoned the search for truth. He no longer flatters himself that his propositions are or can be known to him or to any other human being to be true; and he contents himself with aiming at the correct, or the consistent. The distinction is not annulled nor even blurred by the reflection that consistency contains immanently a kind of truth. He is not absolutely certain, but he believes profoundly that it is possible to find various sets of a few propositions each such that the propositions of each set are compatible, that the propositions of each such set imply other propositions, and that the latter can be deduced from the former with certainty. That is to say, he believes that there are systems of coherent or consistent propositions, and he regards it his business to discover such systems. Any such system is a branch of mathematics.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 94. Also in Science (1912), New Series, 35, 107.
The threads that archaeology has put in Sir Arthur Evans’ hands are of necessity tangled, faded and broken; yet his learning and intuition have enabled him to weave them into a coherent whole that is almost history.
From Bosanquet’s book review, 'The Realm of Minos', (of Sir Arthur Evans’, The Palace of Minos: A Comparative Account of the Successive Stages of the Early Cretan Civilization as Illustrated by the Discoveries at Knossos: Volume I), in Harold Cox, ed., The Edinburgh Review (Jul 1922), 236, No. 481, 70.
We should therefore, with grace and optimism, embrace NOMA’s tough-minded demand: Acknowledge the personal character of these human struggles about morals and meanings, and stop looking for definite answers in nature’s construction. But many people cannot bear to surrender nature as a ‘transitional object’–a baby’s warm blanket for our adult comfort. But when we do (for we must) , nature can finally emerge in her true form: not as a distorted mirror of our needs, but as our most fascinating companion. Only then can we unite the patches built by our separate magisteria into a beautiful and coherent quilt called wisdom.
From essay, 'Non-overlapping Magisteria', Natural History magazine (Mar 1997), 106, 16–22 and 60–62. Collected in Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (1999), 178. [NOMA or Non-overlapping magisteria, is viewpoint advocated by Gould, that science and religion each represent different areas of inquiry, fact vs. values, and thus he aims to resolve the supposed conflict between science and religion. He draws the term “magisterium” from an encyclical of Pope Pius XII.
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When God said “Let there be light” he surely must have meant perfectly coherent light.
[co-author with Willis Lamb, Wolfgang Schleich and Marlan Scully]
[co-author with Willis Lamb, Wolfgang Schleich and Marlan Scully]
Article, 'Laser Physics: Quantum Controversy in Action', in Benjamin Bederson (ed.) More Things in Heaven and Earth: a Celebration of Physics at the Millennium (1999), 443.
When there is publicity about [UFO] sightings that turn out to be explainable, the percentage of unexplained sightings goes up, suggesting that these, too, are caused by something in people’s psychology rather than by something that is actually out there. The UFO evidence forms no coherent residue; it never gets better.
(1984).