It Is Complete Nihilism To Propose Laying

The History Of Science, Like The History Of All Human Ideas, Is A History Of Irresponsible Dreams, Of Obstinacy, And Of Error. But Science Is One Of The Very Few Human Activities-perhaps The Only One-in Which Errors Are Systematically Criticized And Fairly Often, In Time, Corrected. This Is Why We Can Say That, In Science, We Often Learn From Our Mistakes, And Why We Can Speak Clearly And Sensibly About Making Progress There. In Most Other Fields Of Human Endeavour There Is Change, But Rarely Progress ... And In Most Fields We Do Not Even Know How To Evaluate Change.

Every Discovery Contains An Irrational Element Or A Creative Intuition.

Piecemeal Social Engineering Resembles Physical Engineering In Regarding The Ends As Beyond The Province Of Technology.

There Is No Pure, Disinterested, Theory-free Observation.

Philosophy Is A Necessary Activity Because We, All Of Us, Take A Great Number Of Things For Granted, And Many Of These Assumptions Are Of A Philosophical Character; We Act On Them In Private Life, In Politics, In Our Work, And In Every Other Sphere Of Our Lives -- But While Some Of These Assumptions Are No Doubt True, It Is Likely, That More Are False And Some Are Harmful. So The Critical Examination Of Our Presuppositions -- Which Is A Philosophical Activity -- Is Morally As Well As Intellectually Important.