Onlooker Quotes (2 quotes)
One of the great distinguishing features of modern science, as compared to the science of earlier periods, is its emphasis on what is called the “experimental method”. … In the experimental way, we take an active role. Instead of being onlookers, we do something that will produce better observational results than those we find by merely looking at nature. Instead of waiting until nature provides situations for us to observe, we try to create such situations. In brief, we make experiments.
In An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (1966, 1995), 40.
The dance is four-dimensional art in that it moves concretely in both space and time. For the onlooker, it is an art largely of visual space combined with time. But for the dancer, and this is more important, the dance is more a muscular than a visual space rhythm, a muscular time, a muscular movement and balance. Dancing is not animated sculpture, it is kinesthetic.
In Art Is Action: A Discussion of Nine Arts in a Modern World (1939), 56.
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) -- 
