"Of course, philosophy is the field that hasn't progressed in two thousand years."
American Atheists National Convention, 2012
"Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics."
- Stephen Hawking, (1942-2018)
Google Zeitgeist Conference, 2011
"[philosophy is] just a way of talking about discoveries that have already been made."
- Paul Dirac, (1902-1984)
Quoted from 1963 in The Strangest Man, 2009
"The philosophy of science is just about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."
- Recalled by Steven Weinberg (1933-2021), Attributed to Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries, 2001
"Scientists are very ambitious. They're very competitive. If they really thought philosophy would help them, they'd learn it and use it. They don't."
- Lewis Wolpert (1929-2021)
Philosophy Now, Round Table Debate, March 22, 2000
"Philosophers have contributed nothing. And if we go back to the suggestion that it was philosophers who brought about the Scientific Revolution and the Renaissance - it's simply false! Galileo was not a philosopher. He was a scientist."
- Lewis Wolpert (1929-2021)
Philosophy Now, Round Table Debate, March 22, 2000
"...many of the subjects of physics - space and time, causality, ultimate particles - have been the concern of philosophers since the earliest times. But in my view, when physicists make discoveries in these areas, they do not so much confirm or refute the speculation of philosophers as show that philosophers were out of their jurisdiction in speculating about these phenomena."
- Steven Weinberg (1933-2021)
American Scientist, 1977
"I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress."
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 1965
"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths."
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
The Impact of Science on Society, 1951
"The progress of mankind is due exclusively to the progress of natural sciences, not to morals, religion or philosophy."
- Justus von Liebig, (1803-1873)
Letter to Schönbein, Aug 1 1866
"Nature consults no philosophers."
- John Walker (1731-1803)
Lectures on Geology, 1792
"Seeing [philosophy] had been cultivated by the most powerful minds... but nevertheless there is not in it one single thing which is not disputed, and therefore open to doubt, I had not the presumption to hope that I should succeed better than others."
- René Descartes (1596-1650)
Discourse on the Method, 1637
"If experiments are performed thousands of times at all seasons and in every place without once producing the effects mentioned by your philosophers, poets, and historians, this will mean nothing and we must believe their words rather than our own eyes?"
- Galileo Galilei, (1596-1650)
The Assayer, 1623
"...few of the philosophers themselves are investigators, or have any first-hand acquaintance with things; most of them are indolent and untrained, add nothing to knowledge by their writings and are blind to the things that might throw a light upon their reasonings."
- William Gilbert (1544-1603)
De Magnete, 1600
"...in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrations than from probable conjectures and the opinions of common philosophers."
- William Gilbert (1544-1603)
De Magnete, 1600
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