My Title Is Intended To Suggest That

These Maxims And The Art Of Interpreting Them May Be Said To Constitute The Premisses Of Science But I Prefer To Call Them Our Scientific Beliefs. These Premisses Or Beliefs Are Embodied In A Tradition, The Tradition Of Science.

Discoveries Are Made By Pursuing Possibilities Suggested By Existing Knowledge.

The Information In Dna Could No More Be Reduced To The Chemical Than Could The Ideas In A Book Be Reduced To The Ink And Paper: Something Beyond Physics And Chemistry Encoded Dna.

We Do Not Accept A Religion Because It Offers Us Certain Rewards. The Only Thing That A Religion Can Offer Us Is To Be Just What It, In Itself, Is: A Greater Meaning In Ourselves, In Our Lives, And In Our Grasp Of The Nature Of Things...a Religion Exists For Us Only If, Like A Piece Of Poetry, It Carries Us Away. It Is Not In Any Sense A 'hypothesis.

The Amount Of Knowledge Which We Can Justify From Evidence Directly Available To Us Can Never Be Large. The Overwhelming Proportion Of Our Factual Beliefs Continue Therefore To Be Held At Second Hand Through Trusting Others, And In The Great Majority Of Cases Our Trust Is Placed In The Authority Of Comparatively Few People Of Widely Acknowledged Standing.