Hunch Quotes (5 quotes)
After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch.
Performed by Lily Tomlin as Trudi the bag lady, in Broadway show, published with the same title, as The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1986), 18. Previous line is “I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore.” Part of a Broadway show by the same name.
Sometimes a hunch, right or wrong, is sufficient theory to lead to a useful observation.
In On the Management of Statistical Techniques for Quality and Productivity (1981), 86.
The theory that gravitational attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distance leads by remorseless logic to the conclusion that the path of a planet should be an ellipse, … It is this logical thinking that is the real meat of the physical sciences. The social scientist keeps the skin and throws away the meat. … His theorems no more follow from his postulates than the hunches of a horse player follow logically from the latest racing news. The result is guesswork clad in long flowing robes of gobbledygook.
In Science is a Sacred Cow (1950), 149-150.
Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.
In How to Get Whatever You Want Out of Life (1987), 110.
When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than the establishment of probable truth. Confirmed hunches, of course, are more upbeat than discredited hypotheses. Since the worst traditions of ‘popular’ writing falsely equate instruction with sweetness and light, our promotional literature abounds with insipid tales in the heroic mode, although tough stories of disappointment and loss give deeper insight into a methodology that the celebrated philosopher Karl Popper once labeled as ‘conjecture and refutation.’
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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) -- 
