There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared ...the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not enough for theory to describe and analyse, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this ...theory must partake of and become the acceleration of this logic. It must tear itself from all referents and take pride only in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The acceptance of a theory as true does involve a personal choice in a way that a law does not. Different people do differ about t...heories; they can choose whether or no they will believe them; but people do not differ about laws; there is no personal choice; universal agreement can be forced. Again, if we look at the history of science, we shall find that the great advances in theory are more closely connected with the names of the great men than are the advances in law. Every important theory is associated with some man whose scientific work was notable apart from that theory; either he invented other important theories or in some way he did scientific work greatly above the average. On the other hand there are a good many well-known laws which are associated with the names of men who, apart from those particular laws, are practically unknown; they discovered one important law, but they have no claim to rank among the geniuses of science. That fact seems to indicate that a greater degree of genius is needed to invent true theories than to discover true laws.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A law explains a set of observations; a theory explains a set of laws. The quintessential illustration of this jump in level is th...e way in which Newton's theory of mechanics explained Kepler's law of planetary motion. Basically, a law applies to observed phenomena in one domain (e.g., planetary bodies and their movements), while a theory is intended to unify phenomena in many domains. Thus, Newton's theory of mechanics explained not only Kepler's laws, but also Galileo's findings about the motion of balls rolling down an inclined plane, as well as the pattern of oceanic tides. Unlike laws, theories often postulate unobservable objects as part of their explanatory mechanism. So, for instance, Freud's theory of mind relies upon the unobservable ego, superego, and id, and in modern physics we have theories of elementary particles that postulate various types of quarks, all of which have yet to be observed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young ...man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveller.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which... it lives on as a limiting case.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »