Rain-Making Quotes (1 quote)
We sign treaties with all nations agreeing to give up war as an instrument of national policy, and then relax as if war had been made unlikely. The premises and the reasoning are very much like those underlying magical rain-making. That is, we want it to rain, therefore it should rain, therefore it will rain. We have discovered the invalidity of this reasoning in the case of rain, and our schools for the most part no longer teach magical methods of influencing physical events.
In 'Education in a Scientific Age', Can Science Save Us? (1947, 2nd ed. 1961), 68.
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) -- 
