Popular Science Quotes (2 quotes)
That form of popular science which merely recites the results of investigations, which merely communicates useful knowledge, is from this standpoint bad science, or no science at all. … Apply this test to every work professing to give a popular account of any branch of science. If any such work gives a description of phenomena that appeals to his imagination rather than to his reason, then it is bad science.
From The Grammar of Science (1892), 12.
They say that every formula halves the sales of a popular science book. This is rubbish–if it was true, then The Emperor’s New Mind by Roger Penrose would have sold one-eighth of a copy, whereas its actual sales were in the hundreds of thousands.
With co-author Jack Cohen. In Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, Chap. 2, 'Squash Court Science', The Science of Discworld (1999), 21, footnote. Pratchett wrote the fantasy story told in the odd-numbered chapters. Following each, relevant real science is provided by his co-authors, Stewart and Cohen, in the even-numbered chapters (such as Chap. 2), but which of the two wrote which lines, is not designated.
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
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