Open-Minded Quotes (2 quotes)
Gardner writes about various kinds of cranks with the conscious superiority of the scientist…. He asserts that the scientist, unlike the crank, does his best to remain open-minded, so how can he be so sure that no sane person has ever seen a flying saucer…? … A.J. Ayer once remarked wryly “I wish I was as certain of anything as he seems to be about everything”.
In The Quest For Wilhelm Reich (1981), 2.
Science progresses not because scientists as a whole are passionately open-minded but because different scientists are passionately closed-minded about different things.
—Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method (1992)
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) -- 
