Science And Politics Quotes (16 quotes)
[We] do not learn for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country.
The sciences that should become our country.
In Henry V (1599), Act 5, Scene 2, line 59-60.
[When asked “Dr. Einstein, why is it that when the mind of man has stretched so far as to discover the structure of the atom we have been unable to devise the political means to keep the atom from destroying us?”] That is simple, my friend. It is because politics is more difficult than physics.
Einstein’s answer to a conferee at a meeting at Princeton, N.J. (Jan 1946), as recalled by Greenville Clark in 'Letters to the Times', in New York Times (22 Apr 1955), 24.
Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst, sie ist ebensowenig.
Politics is not a science, as many of the professors imagine, but an art, it is just like that.
Politics is not a science, as many of the professors imagine, but an art, it is just like that.
Original German in Otto von Bismarck, Horst Kohl, Bismarckreden: 1847-1895 (1899), 255. As quoted in translation in William Roscoe Thayer 'Cavour and Bismarck', The Atlantic (Mar 1909), 103, 343.
Interviewer: Is there any science that’s not wrapped in politics?
Seitz: Oh, there are some things. The disappearance of the frog—as you know, the frog is dying worldwide. … I don’t think that has had any political repercussions other than the fact that that is happening.
Seitz: Oh, there are some things. The disappearance of the frog—as you know, the frog is dying worldwide. … I don’t think that has had any political repercussions other than the fact that that is happening.
Interview transcript on PBS Frontline website (24 Apr 2007). Seitz was a leading skeptic, dismissive of climate change.
About the year 1821, I undertook to superintend, for the Government, the construction of an engine for calculating and printing mathematical and astronomical tables. Early in the year 1833, a small portion of the machine was put together, and was found to perform its work with all the precision which had been anticipated. At that period circumstances, which I could not control, caused what I then considered a temporary suspension of its progress; and the Government, on whose decision the continuance or discontinuance of the work depended, have not yet communicated to me their wishes on the question.
In The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: A Fragment (1838), 186.
If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.
In 'The Act of Creation', a book review (of Arthur Koestler’s book, The Act of Creation) in New Statesman (19 Jun 1964). Collected in The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science (1996), 42. Also collected in Medawar’s The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science (1967), 7.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
From Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1961). As quoted in Elizabeth Sirimarco, The Cold War (2005), 45.
The hostility of the state would be assured toward any system or science that might not strengthen its arm.
In The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (1919), 129.
The indifference of our politicians and political leaders to science is one of the most dangerous features in the state.
From Book Review, 'Some Men Of Science: Essays, Biographical and Chemical', Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art (16 Jan 1909), 107, 82. [The review writer is giving his own opinion why because of the pursuit of knowledge exemplified in it, he wishes the book “may have a wide circulation.” —Webmaster]
The nations may be divided in everything else, but they all share a single body of science.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 270.
The politician … is sometimes tempted to encroach on the normal territory of the scientific estate. Sometimes he interferes directly with the scientist’s pursuit of basic science; but he is more likely to interfere when the scientist proposes to publish findings that upset the established political or economic order, or when he joins with the engineering or medical profession in proposing to translate the findings of science into new policies. … Who decides when the apparent consensus of scientific opinion on the relation of cigarettes to lung cancer is great enough to justify governmental regulatory action, and of what kind? In such issues the problem is less often whether politics will presume to dictate to science than it is how much politics is to be influenced by the new findings of science.
In The Scientific Estate (1965), 201.
The union of the political and scientific estates is not like a partnership, but a marriage. It will not be improved if the two become like each other, but only if they respect each other's quite different needs and purposes. No great harm is done if in the meantime they quarrel a bit.
The Scientific Estate (1965), 71.
Under the flag of science, art, and persecuted freedom of thought, Russia would one day be ruled by toads and crocodiles the like of which were unknown even in Spain at the time of the Inquisition.
We can assuredly build a socialist state with modern industry, modern agriculture, and modern science and culture.
In The Wisdom of Mao (2002), 210.
When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask themselves only whether it is true. When a politician says something, his colleagues must first of all ask, 'Why does he say it?'
The Voice of Dolphins (1961), 25-26. In Don K. Price, The Scientific Estate (1965), 9.
You who are scientists may have been told that you are, in part, responsible for the debacle of today … but I assure you that it is not the scientists … who are responsible. … Surely it is time for our republics … to use every knowledge, every science that we possess. … You and I … will act together to protect and defend by every means … our science, our culture, our American freedom and our civilization.
Address (10 May 1940) to American Scientific Congress in Washington. This was the day the Nazis invaded the Low Countries. As quoted in Robert Coughlan, 'Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession', Life (6 Sep 1954), 64.
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) -- 
