v      Science is organized knowledge (Spencer)

v      Science is what scientists do (J. D. Bernal, Science History Vol 1)

v      Science is the study of those judgements concerning which universal agreement can be obtained
(N. Campbell, 1921, What Is Science?)

v      Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. (S. J. Gould, 1989, Natural History 98: 12~25)

v      The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking (Einstein)

v      Science is the interpretation of nature and man is the interpreter
(C. Gore, 1878, The Art of Scientific Discovery)

v      Every grand advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. (John Dewey)

v      Science is an attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought (Einstein, 1940)

v      Science searches for relations which are thought to exist independently of the searching individual
(A. Einstein)

v      Scientists are concerned with the generalized, the ideal. Artists are usually concerned with the particular, the individual. The artist is nearer to the scientist in his capacity as problem poser, theorizer, hypothesizer, than he is to the scientist as problem solver, or checker. This latter function is usually the sole prerogative of science (A. H. Maslow)

v      Science is not for the common public, but only for those spiritually prepared. Otherwise it is like pouring pure water into a muddy well; you only stir up the mud and lose the water.
(Thorn, 1973, in preface to a translation of De Revolutionibus)

v      A scientist experiences no failures, only unprofitable avenues to pursue (J. Salk)

v      Science is a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself
(I. I. Rabi)

v      Science is a little bit like the air you breathe~it is everywhere (D. D. Eisenhower)

v      Science contributes to our culture in many ways, as a creative intellectual activity in its own right, as a light which has served to illuminate man's place in the universe, and as the source of understanding man's own nature (J. F. Kennedy)

v      It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every morning before breakfast (K. Lorenz)

v      Man loves to wonder, and that is the seed of our science (R. W. Emerson)

v      Science tends to be created as it is needed (R. Feynman)

v      Science when well digested is nothing but good sense and reason (Stanislaus)

v      Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry~~imagination
(M. Planck)

v      Science might better be considered as concept-seeking rather than problem-solving.
(Brandwein, Watson, and Blackwood)

v      Science is built up with facts as a house is with stones, but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house (J. H. Poincare, 1885)

v      Science is not a technique or a body of knowledge, though it uses both. It is rather an attitude of enquiry, of observation and reasoning with respect to the world. It can be developed, not by memorizing facts or juggling formulas to get an answer, but only by actual practice of scientific observation and reasoning
(K. T. Comptom)

v      Science is first a set of attitudes. It is a disposition to deal with facts rather than with what someone has said about them (B. F. Skinner)

v      The aim of science is the recording and ration al correlation of those parts of our experience which are actually or potentially common to all normal people (H. Dingle)

v      Science is an interconnected series of concepts and conceptual schemes that have developed as a results of experimentation and observation (J. B. Conant)

v      Science perfects genius and moderates that fury of fancy which cannot contain itself within the bounds of reason (J. Dryden)

v      Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the bible. Next, they way it has been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it. (L.Agassiz)

v      A scientific hypothesis is elegant and exciting insofar as it contradicts common sense (
C. Lyell)

v      It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts (
S. Holmes)

v      In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual
(G. Galileo)

v      In science, each new point of view calls forth a revolution in nomenclature (F. Engels)

v      Unfortunate those scientists who have only clear thoughts in their heads (L. Pasteur)

v      An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: It rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning
(M. Planck)

v      Scientific method is what working scientists do, not what other people or even they themselves may say about it. No working scientist, when he plans an experiment in the laboratory, asks himself whether he is being properly scientific, nor is he interested in whatever method he may be using as method.
(Percy W. Bridgman From: Reflections of a Physicist, 1955)

v      There is no such unique standard method -- scientific progress requires many methods -- but students in introductory science courses are taught that "The Scientific Method" is a straightforward procedure, involving testing hypotheses derived from theories in order to test those theories.
(T. Hawes, The Myth of the Magical Scientific Method)

v      On a broad level, science is a methodology for attaining knowledge, where knowledge is a form of belief distinct from mere opinion or uninformed guesswork. Science seeks out better ways of representing our experiences. The experiences and their representation in a system of beliefs are termed, respectively, observation and theory
(M. H. Salmon, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, 1992)

v      Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work. -- James Randi