Theory Quotes - Page 20

The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are; and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion.

The purpose of economic theory is to make those who are comfortable FEEL comfortable.

In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.

I do not know whether to be delighted or outraged by the fact that Literary Theory: An Introduction was the subject of a study by a well known U.S. business school, which was intrigued to discover how an academic text could become a best-seller.

The most compelling confirmation of Marx's theory of history is late capitalist society. There is a sense in which this case is becoming truer as time passes.

Any attempt to define literary theory in terms of a distinctive method is doomed to failure.

But the scientific importance of a change in knowledge of fact consists precisely in j its having consequences for a system of theory.

One ounce of practice is worth a thousand pounds of theory.

If the facts don't fit your theory, just find some new facts.

Our mistake is not that we take our theories too seriously, but that we do not take them seriously enough.

Theories of art carry the seeds of their own destruction.

Of course the theory of evolution would be vacuous if it offered a glib explanation for every inexplicable act.

An expert must be BOLD if he hopes to alchemize his homespun theory into conventional wisdom.

Professors of theory merely hold post-mortems.

A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between "external" forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and "internal" forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But Western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called "laws of form.

Theory-free science makes about as much sense as value-free politics.

The world is too complex for subsumption under any general theory of change.

Scientists tend to risk theories they admire

Beck said he didn't believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent.

That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened - good, bad, or anywhere in between - it was always, if nothing else, all your own.

The hour has arrived to abandon theories and go directly to what is practical.

Natural Selection is not Evolution. Yet, ever since the two words have been in common use, the theory of Natural Selection has been employed as a convenient abbreviation for the theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection, put forward by Darwin and Wallace. This has had the unfortunate consequence that the theory of Natural Selection itself has scarcely ever, if ever, received separate consideration.

I think it's a theory... the theory of evolution and I don't accept it as a theory.

Conspiracy theories are the refuge of the disempowered.

I have a theory that evolutionary biologists are more vain than particle physicists.