Differences quotes
From Motley Bytes Wiki
Contents
- 1 Alistair_Cockburn
- 2 Tom_DeMarco and Tim_Lister
- 3 W_Edwards_Deming
- 4 Edsger_Wybe_Dijkstra
- 5 Peter_Drucker
- 6 Douglas_Hofstadter
- 7 Carl_Jung
- 8 Alister_McGrath
- 9 Malcolm_McIlroy
- 10 Steven_Pinker
- 11 Karl_Popper
- 12 Hans_Reichenbach
- 13 Nicholas_Rescher
- 14 Will_Rogers
- 15 Bertrand_Russell
- 16 George_Sarton
- 17 Adam_Smith
- 18 William_Whewell
- 19 Shoshana_Zuboff
Alistair_Cockburn
People Characteristics
"People, as active devices, have success modes and failure modes. The following are the main ones that I have named and used to date:
1. People are communicating beings, doing best face-to-face, in person, with real-time question and answer.
2. People have trouble acting consistently over time.
3. People are highly variable, varying from day to day and place to place.
4. People generally want to be good citizens, are good at looking around, taking initiative, and doing 'whatever is needed' to get the project to work.
There are other characteristics that I won’t expand here:
- People need both think time and communicating opportunities...
- People work well from examples...
- People prefer to fail conservatively than to risk succeeding differently; prefer to invent than to research, can only keep a small amount in their heads, and do make mistakes, and find it hard to change their habits.
- Individual personalities easily dominate a project.
- A person’s personality profile strongly affects their ability to perform specific assignments."
- Source: Cockburn, A. A. R. (1999). Characterizing people as non-linear 1st order components in software development. HaT Technical Report 1999.03, Humans and Technology, Inc.. Retrieved 2019-06-29 from https://ameyakarve.wordpress.com
/2012/07/22 /characterizing-people -as-non-linear -1st-order- components-in -software-development -cockburn-us/.
- Keywords: People_quotes Success_quotes Failure_quotes Communication_quotes Proximity_quotes Real_Time_quotes Question_quotes Consistency_quotes Time_quotes Variability_quotes Citizen_quotes Good_quotes Observation_quotes Flexibility_quotes Altruism_quotes Conservative_quotes Initiative_quotes Project_quotes Risk_quotes Differences_quotes Invention_quotes Innovation_quotes Research_quotes Thinking_quotes Habit_quotes Personality_quotes Ability_quotes Limitation_quotes Consciousness_quotes Cognition_quotes Mistake_quotes Hard_quotes Domination_quotes Assignment_quotes Active_quotes Device_quotes Mode_quotes Beings_quotes Face_quotes Person_quotes Answer_quotes Trouble_quotes Day_quotes Place_quotes Look_quotes Need_quotes Work_quotes Characteristic_quotes Opportunity_quotes Example_quotes Fail_quotes Head_quotes Change_quotes Profile_quotes Affect_quotes Perform_quotes
Tom_DeMarco and Tim_Lister
Cheeseburgers
"Development is inherently different from production. But managers of development and allied efforts often allow their thinking to be shaped by a management philosophy derived entirely from a production environment. Imagine for the moment that you’re the manager of the local fast food franchise. It makes perfect sense for you to take any or all of the following efficient production measures: - Squeeze out error. Make the machine (the human machine) run as smoothly as possible. - Take a hard line about people goofing off on the job. - Treat workers as interchangeable pieces of the machine. - Optimize the steady state. (Don’t even think about how the operation got up to speed, or what it would take to close it down.) - Standardize procedure. Do everything by the book. - Eliminate experimentation—that’s what the folks at headquarters are paid for. These would be reasonable approaches if you were in the fast food business (or any production environment), but you’re not. The 'make a cheeseburger, sell a cheeseburger' mentality can be fatal in your development area. It can only serve to damp your people’s spirits and focus their attention away from the real problems at hand. This style of management will be directly at odds with the work. To manage thinking workers effectively, you need to take measures nearly opposite those listed above."
- Source: Book: Entitled: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Edition: 3rd. Written by: Tom DeMarco; Tim Lister. Date published: 1987; 1999; 2013. Publisher: Addison-Wesley. Country: USA; GBR; CAN; DEU; FRA; ESP; ZAF; AUS; JPN; SGP; MEX. Language: en. ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0-321-93411-6 (alk paper); 0-321-93411-3 (alk paper). Chapter: 2 (Make a Cheeseburger, Sell a Cheeseburger).
- Keywords: Cheeseburger_quotes Differences_quotes Production_quotes Development_quotes Manager_quotes Management_quotes Thinking_quotes Philosophy_quotes Environment_quotes Fast_Food_quotes Efficiency_quotes Error_quotes Machine_quotes Humanity_quotes Job_quotes Work_quotes Goofing_Off_quotes Worker_quotes Interchangeable_quotes Fungibility_quotes Status_Quo_quotes Optimization_quotes Change_quotes Steady_State_quotes Innovation_quotes Standards_quotes Book_quotes Experiment_quotes Headquarter_quotes Mentality_quotes Fatal_quotes Damp_quotes Imagination_quotes Steady_quotes State_quotes Eliminate_quotes Reason_quotes Make_quotes Sell_quotes Problem_quotes Effective_quotes Opposite_quotes
W_Edwards_Deming
People Manager
"A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people."
- Source: W. Edwards Deming. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993).
- Keywords: Management_quotes Human_quotes Differences_quotes Understanding_quotes Rank_quotes Average_quotes People_quotes
Edsger_Wybe_Dijkstra
Programming Styles
“There are very different programming styles. I tend to see them as Mozart versus Beethoven. When Mozart started to write, the composition was finished. He wrote the manuscript and it was 'aus einem Guss' (from one cast). In beautiful handwriting, too. Beethoven was a doubter and a struggler who started writing before he finished the composition and then glued corrections onto the page. In one place he did this nine times. When they peeled them, the last version proved identical to the first one.”
- Source: Dijkstra (2001) Source: Denken als discipline, a program from Dutch public TV broadcaster VPRO from April 10th, 2001 about Dijkstra.
- Keywords: Programming_quotes Style_quotes Differences_quotes Music_quotes Creativity_quotes Correction_quotes Mozart(topic)_quotes Beethoven(topic)_quotes Write_quotes Composition_quotes Finish_quotes Manuscript_quotes Beautiful_quotes Handwriting_quotes Doubt_quotes Struggle_quotes Glue_quotes Page_quotes Peel_quotes Version_quotes Identical_quotes First_quotes Last_quotes
Peter_Drucker
Ordering Others About
“It does not follow from the separation of planning and doing in the analysis of work that the planner and the doer should be two different people. It does not follow that the industrial world should be divided into two classes of people: a few who decide what is to be done, design the job, set the pace, rhythm and motions, and order others about; and the many who do what and as they are told.”
- Source: Peter Drucker, “The Practice of Management” New York,: Harper, 1st ed. 1954 ; Routledge, 2012, p. 284.
- Keywords: Follow_quotes Separation_quotes Plan_quotes Do_quotes Analysis_quotes Work_quotes Differences_quotes Human_quotes People_quotes Industry_quotes World_quotes Divide_quotes Class_quotes Few_quotes Decision_quotes Design_quotes Set_quotes Pace_quotes Rhythm_quotes Motion_quotes Order_quotes Told_quotes
Future Different
“The only thing we know about the future is that it is going to be different.”
- Source: Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New York: Harper & Row, 1973. p. 44.
- Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Future_quotes Go_quotes Differences_quotes Change_quotes Prediction_quotes
Douglas_Hofstadter
Thinking At A Different Level
“It is when something goes wrong that it is important to be able to think on different levels.”
- Source: Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Written by Douglas R. Hofstadter. Basic Books, New York, NY. ISBN 13: 978-046502656-2. ISBN 10: 046502656-7. Chapter 10. Page 294.
- Keywords: Wrong_quotes Importance_quotes Think_quotes Level_quotes Differences_quotes Something_quotes Go_quotes
Carl_Jung
Insoluble Problems
“I always worked with the temperamental conviction that fundamentally there are no insoluble problems, and experience justified me in so far as I have often seen individuals simply outgrow a problem which had destroyed others. This ‘outgrowing’, as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person's horizon, and through this widening of his view the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency. It was not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different light, and so did indeed become different. What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of emotion, viewed from the higher level of the personality, now seemed like a storm in the valley seen from a high mountain-top. This does not mean that the thunderstorm is robbed of its reality, but instead of being in it, one is now above it. However, since we are both valley and mountain with respect to the psyche, it might seem a vain illusion to feel oneself beyond what is human. One certainly does feel the affect and is shaken and tormented by it, yet at the same time one is aware of a higher consciousness, which prevents one from becoming identical with the affect, a consciousness which takes the affect objectively, and can say, Ί know that I suffer'.”
- Source: Carl Jung, Commentary by Jung on 'The Secret of the Golden Flower'. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com
/mobile/doc /58044038 /Commentary -by-Jung -on-The- Secret -of-the- Golden -Flower.
- Keywords: Conviction_quotes Insoluble_quotes Problem_quotes Experience_quotes Justification_quotes Individual_quotes Growth_quotes Destruction_quotes Consciousness_quotes Interest_quotes Horizon_quotes View_quotes Urgent_quotes Solution_quotes Logic_quotes Life_quotes Repression_quotes Unconscious_quotes Light_quotes Differences_quotes Level_quotes Conflict_quotes Wild_quotes Panic_quotes Emotion_quotes Personality_quotes Storm_quotes Valley_quotes Mountain_quotes Reality_quotes Objectivity_quotes Illusion_quotes Humanity_quotes Torment_quotes Identical_quotes Suffering_quotes
Alister_McGrath
Why is the Kettle Boiling?
“The distinguished geologist Frank Rhodes made this point back in 1965, using the analogy of a boiling kettle. So why is the kettle boiling? Rhodes notes that two types of explanation might be given. At the scientific level, energy is being supplied, which raises the temperature of the water to its boiling point. Yet another answer can be given. 'The kettle is boiling because I put it on to make a cup of tea.' Rhodes makes a point which some of you may find predictable, but is none the less important. Here is what he says: 'Now these are different answers. But both are true, both are complementary and not competitive. One answer is appropriate within a particular frame of reference, the other within another frame of reference. There is a sense in which each is incomplete without the other.”
- Source: McGrath, A. (2014, October 20). Conflict or Mutual Enrichment? Why Science and Theology Need to Talk to Each Other. ABC Australia. Oxford, UK. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/10/21/4111675.htm
- Note: Frank Rhodes gave credit for the kettle analogy to Dr. Douglas Spanner.
- Douglas C. Spanner is Professor Emeritus of Plant Biophysics at London University.
- Kettle analogy originally in the book “Creation & Evolution” by Douglas C. Spanner, published by Douglas C. Spanner in 2004, Introduction. Online at https://creationandevolution.co.uk/Creation & Evolution - Prof.D.C.Spanner.pdf retrieved 2024-06-19.
- https://www.creationandevolution.co.uk/dcs.htm (Retrieved 2024-06-19).
- See Also:
- Keywords: Geology_quotes Analogy_quotes Boil_quotes Kettle_quotes Explanation_quotes Science_quotes Energy_quotes Level_quotes Temperature_quotes Water_quotes Answer_quotes Cup_quotes Tea_quotes Prediction_quotes Importance_quotes Differences_quotes True_quotes Complement_quotes Competition_quotes Appropriate_quotes Frame_quotes Reference_quotes Incomplete_quotes Perspective_quotes Bias_quotes Requirements_quotes Rhodes(topic)_quotes
Malcolm_McIlroy
Programs and Bridges
“There is a difference between writing programs and designing bridges.”
- Source: Malcolm Douglas McIlroy in a report entitled Software Engineering: Report of a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee. Chaired by Friedrich Ludwig Bauer. Edited by P. Naur; B. Randell. Conference held 1968-10-07 through 1968-10-11 in Garmisch, Germany. OCLC: 35337842. See http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/index.html ; http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF ; https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1102020 ; https://books.google.com/books/about/Software_engineering.html?id=Uc9QAAAAYAAJ . Page 75.
- Keywords: Differences_quotes Programming_quotes Design_quotes Bridge_quotes Software_Engineering_quotes Engineering_quotes Writing_quotes
Steven_Pinker
Neurons to Consciousness
“None of us has a brain that can actually put us in touch with reality unaided with truth. I've just shown you a bunch of gadgetry that responds to things that are essential to our survival, things that prevent us from falling off cliffs and bumping into trees. But they don't actually correspond to any clear description of the world as it is. So we have, for example, circuitry that responds to the edges rather than the physical distribution of light, because edges are important, that's where objects leave off and their backgrounds begin. Moreover, they can be fooled, as I did with each one of you. That since our neural circuitry does consist of a mechanism, not a pipeline to the truth or a window onto objective reality. That is naïve realism we know is false because there are illusions. You can't just trust your senses. That means we need some way of augmenting the faculties that nature gave us to make our beliefs as accurate as possible. Which of course is why the early modern philosophers made such a big deal of visual illusions. They said you can't just open your eyes and see the world as it is. Look at all these illusions. So what we do, what gives some of us confidence that our beliefs are objectively true is that they are part of an institutional infrastructure of testing and criticism and logic and determining which hypotheses withstand criticism and attempts at refutation. Devising exotic arrangements of reality to reflect the way reality is put together, namely experiments. Thanks to this huge network of minds, each one of them making up for deficits of all the others, we like to think that we have a collective grasp on truth that none of us individually can have. But of course, it's always fallible. The religious beliefs I think were actually pretty reasonable hypotheses in earlier states of our collective knowledge. Even Richard Dawkins said that before Darwin he probably would have been a creationist because the cosmic engineer was the only available explanation for the obvious adaptive complexity of living things. I would add that prior to the advent of modern neuroscience I probably would have believed in souls because there was no better explanation for phenomena such as that people respond intelligently to their environments. When you dream some part of you is up and about the world while your body is in bed the whole time. That seems like there must be some part of you that can leave your body. When a person suddenly dies some kind of animating force no longer seems to be animating the body that was there just a few minutes ago. So the soul hypothesis is not a stupid or irrational belief, nor is creationism if it's the best that you have. Now, of course, we can do better. But doing better in part depends not just on this cumulative weight of evidence and argument. But because few of us can actually reconstruct the scientific observations that justify the theory of natural selection or the theory of neural networks, all of us, at least a little bit, take it on faith in the following sense; that there is a community that you trust enough because when they have been challenged to defend their beliefs they can connect them to reality. They have shown that it isn't magic. That they have given reason to trust them because they've convinced you that they're the mores of their culture, of their scientific culture, designed so that they will find true things and weed out false things. If you don't have a degree of solidarity or trust, if you think that scientists are all in cahoots with big corporations or are trying to tear down all faith and values and meaning and you simply refuse to follow through the very long chain of deduction that connects the claims to the experiments, then you'll naturally reject it just because it's not your tribe. For you and me scientists are our tribe and we're apt to give them some credibility, indeed some credulousness, knowing that if ever challenged it would be repaid. But unless you trace that through it can be all too easy to reject the conclusions of science, and indeed a number of studies have shown that contrary to the common belief that people believe in falsehoods, such as that vaccines cause autism or that humans were created five thousand years ago or that the burning of fossil fuels has no effect on global temperatures, it turns out that people with those beliefs that we have every reason to believe are false are no more scientifically naïve on average than people that have beliefs that are scientifically justified. You give a test on evolution to a bunch of people who believe in evolution, give it to a bunch of creationists, there's not much difference in how well they score. In fact, often they are equal. Likewise, the typical grasp of climate science among someone who signs on to the scientific consensus is not much better than the adamant deniers. That kind of dashes the hope that simply by increasing the quality of science education you will lead people to more accurate beliefs. There, in addition, has to be a dissociation of who you think are the good guys and who are the bad guys from who has the best claims to truth. That's what it depends on.”
- Source: From the Q&A portion of the lecture From Neurons to Consciousness given by Steven Picker at the New College of the Humanities, 2017. Video available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrVBkxLcqrw&t=4057s (posted 20170309).
- Keywords: Accuracy_quotes Adament_quotes Adaptability_quotes Addition_quotes Advent_quotes Aid_quotes Animate_quotes Argue_quotes Arrangement_quotes Attempt_quotes Augment_quotes Autism_quotes Availability_quotes Background_quotes Bad_quotes Bed_quotes Belief_quotes Best_quotes Big_quotes Body_quotes Brain_quotes Bump_quotes Bunch_quotes Burn_quotes Cahoot_quotes Chain_quotes Challenge_quotes Circuit_quotes Claim_quotes Clear_quotes Cliff_quotes Climate_quotes Collective_quotes Complexity_quotes Common_quotes Community_quotes Conclusion_quotes Confidence_quotes Connection_quotes Consensus_quotes Consist_quotes Contrary_quotes Convince_quotes Cooperation_quotes Corporation_quotes Correspondence_quotes Cosmic_quotes Creationism_quotes Credibility_quotes Criticism_quotes Culture_quotes Cumulative_quotes Dash_quotes Deal_quotes Death_quotes Deception_quotes Deduction_quotes Defence_quotes Deficit_quotes Degree_quotes Deny_quotes Dependence_quotes Description_quotes Design_quotes Determine_quotes Devise_quotes Differences_quotes Dissociation_quotes Distribution_quotes Dreaming_quotes Early_quotes Easy_quotes Edge_quotes Education_quotes Effect_quotes Engineer_quotes Environment_quotes Essential_quotes Evidence_quotes Evolution_quotes Exotic_quotes Experiment_quotes Explanation_quotes Eye_quotes Faculty_quotes Faith_quotes Fall_quotes Fallible_quotes False_quotes Few_quotes Find_quotes Follow_quotes Fool_quotes Force_quotes Fossil_quotes Fuel_quotes Gadget_quotes Global_quotes Good_quotes Grasp_quotes Guy_quotes Huge_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Illusion_quotes Importance_quotes Increasing_quotes Individual_quotes Infrastructure_quotes Institution_quotes Intelligence_quotes Irrational_quotes Justification_quotes Knowledge_quotes Leave_quotes Life_quotes Light_quotes Logic_quotes Long_quotes Magic_quotes Meaning_quotes Mechanism_quotes Mind_quotes Modern_quotes Moral_quotes Naïve_quotes Nature_quotes Natural_Selection_quotes Network_quotes Neural_quotes Neuroscience_quotes Object_quotes Objectivity_quotes Observation_quotes Obvious_quotes Part_quotes People_quotes Perception_quotes Phenomena_quotes Philosophy_quotes Physical_quotes Pipeline_quotes Possibility_quotes Prehistoric_quotes Prevent_quotes Reality_quotes Reason_quotes Reconstruct_quotes Reflection_quotes Refuse_quotes Refutation_quotes Rejection_quotes Religion_quotes Repay_quotes Respond_quotes Science_quotes Scientist_quotes Score_quotes Seem_quotes Selection_quotes Sense_quotes Show_quotes Sight_quotes Solidarity_quotes Soul_quotes State_quotes Study_quotes Stupidity_quotes Survival_quotes Tear_quotes Temperature_quotes Testing_quotes Theory_quotes Thinking_quotes Time_quotes Touch_quotes Trace_quotes Tree_quotes Tribal_quotes Trust_quotes Truth_quotes Try_quotes Typical_quotes Unaided_quotes Vaccine_quotes Value_quotes Visual_quotes Weed_quotes Weight_quotes Whole_quotes Window_quotes Withstand_quotes World_quotes
Karl_Popper
Theory Personality
“Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.”
- Source: Karl Raimund Popper, Objective Knowledge: an Evolutionary Approach (1972), 299.
Hans_Reichenbach
Picture of Scientific Method
“The picture of scientific method drafted by modern philosophy is very different from traditional conceptions. Gone is the ideal of a universe whose course follows strict rules, a predetermined cosmos that unwinds itself like an unwinding clock. Gone is the ideal of the scientist who knows the absolute truth. The happenings of nature are like rolling dice rather than like revolving stars; they are controlled by probability laws, not by causality, and the scientist resembles a gambler more than a prophet. He can tell you only his best posits — he never knows beforehand whether they will come true. He is a better gambler, though, than the man at the green table, because his statistical methods are superior. And his goal is staked higher — the goal of foretelling the rolling dice of the cosmos. If he is asked why he follows his methods, with what title he makes his predictions, he cannot answer that he has an irrefutable knowledge of the future; he can only lay his best bets. But he can prove that they are best bets, that making them is the best he can do — and if a man does his best, what else can you ask of him?”
- Source: Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951, 1973), 248-9. Collected in James Louis Jarrett and Sterling M. McMurrin (eds.), Contemporary Philosophy: A Book of Readings (1954), 376.
- Keywords: Picture_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Modern_quotes Philosophy_quotes Differences_quotes Tradition_quotes Ideal_quotes Universe_quotes Causality_quotes Course_quotes Strict_quotes Rule_quotes Predetermine_quotes Cosmos_quotes Unwind_quotes Clock_quotes Science_quotes Absolute_quotes Certainty_quotes Truth_quotes Nature_quotes Roll_quotes Dice_quotes Probability_quotes Revolve_quotes Star_quotes Control_quotes Law_quotes Gambler_quotes Prophet_quotes Prediction_quotes Posit_quotes Knowledge_quotes Beforehand_quotes True_quotes Statistics_quotes Superior_quotes Goal_quotes Stake_quotes High_quotes Foretell_quotes Methodology_quotes Title_quotes Answer_quotes Irrefutability_quotes Future_quotes Bet_quotes Proof_quotes Best_quotes Ask_quotes Conception_quotes Scientist_quotes Man_quotes
Nicholas_Rescher
Inherent Unpredictability
“The inherent unpredictability of future scientific developments — the fact that no secure inference can be drawn from one state of science to another — has important implications for the issue of the limits of science. It means that present-day science cannot speak for future science: it is in principle impossible to make any secure inferences from the substance of science at one time about its substance at a significantly different time. The prospect of future scientific revolutions can never be precluded. We cannot say with unblinking confidence what sorts of resources and conceptions the science of the future will or will not use. Given that it is effectively impossible to predict the details of what future science will accomplish, it is no less impossible to predict in detail what future science will not accomplish. We can never confidently put this or that range of issues outside 'the limits of science', because we cannot discern the shape and substance of future science with sufficient clarity to be able to say with any assurance what it can and cannot do. Any attempt to set 'limits' to science — any advance specification of what science can and cannot do by way of handling problems and solving questions — is destined to come to grief.”
- Source: Nicholas Rescher, The Limits of Science (1984), 102-3.
- Keywords: Inherent_quotes Prediction_quotes Unpredictability_quotes Future_quotes Science_quotes Development_quotes Progress_quotes Inference_quotes Conclusion_quotes State_quotes Causality_quotes Importance_quotes Imply_quotes Issue_quotes Limitation_quotes Meaning_quotes Present_quotes Day_quotes Speak_quotes Principle_quotes Impossibility_quotes Substance_quotes Time_quotes Significance_quotes Differences_quotes Prospect_quotes Revolution_quotes Preclude_quotes Blink_quotes Confidence_quotes Resource_quotes Conception_quotes Detail_quotes Accomplish_quotes Range_quotes Shape_quotes Sufficient_quotes Clarity_quotes Assurance_quotes Attempt_quotes Specification_quotes Advance_quotes Handle_quotes Problem_quotes Solution_quotes Question_quotes Destiny_quotes Grief_quotes Secure_quotes Outside_quotes Discern_quotes
Will_Rogers
Everyone is Ignorant
"You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."
- Source: Will Rogers. From Nuts To The Soup (31 August 1924); published in The New York Times.
- Keywords: Knowledge_quotes Ignorance_quotes Differences_quotes Subject_quotes Everybody_quotes
Bertrand_Russell
Persecution Used In Theology
“Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So, whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”
- Source: Bertrand Russell, In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 22.
Significance of Fact
“The significance of a fact is relative to [the general body of scientific] knowledge. To say that a fact is significant in science, is to say that it helps to establish or refute some general law; for science, though it starts from observation of the particular, is not concerned essentially with the particular, but with the general. A fact, in science, is not a mere fact, but an instance. In this the scientist differs from the artist, who, if he deigns to notice facts at all, is likely to notice them in all their particularity.”
- Source: Bertrand Russell, In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 38.
- Keywords: Significance_quotes Fact_quotes Relative_quotes Generality_quotes Body_quotes Science_quotes Knowledge_quotes Establish_quotes Refutation_quotes Law_quotes Start_quotes Observation_quotes Particular_quotes Concern_quotes Essential_quotes Instance_quotes Differences_quotes Art_quotes Design_quotes General_quotes Notice_quotes
George_Sarton
Scientific Progress
“No history of civilization can be tolerably complete which does not give considerable space to the explanation of scientific progress. If we had any doubts about this, it would suffice to ask ourselves what constitutes the essential difference between our and earlier civilizations. Throughout the course of history, in every period, and in almost every country, we find a small number of saints, of great artists, of men of science. The saints of today are not necessarily more saintly than those of a thousand years ago; our artists are not necessarily greater than those of early Greece; they are more likely to be inferior; and of course, our men of science are not necessarily more intelligent than those of old; yet one thing is certain, their knowledge is at once more extensive and more accurate. The acquisition and systematization of positive knowledge is the only human activity which is truly cumulative and progressive. Our civilization is essentially different from earlier ones, because our knowledge of the world and of ourselves is deeper, more precise, and more certain, because we have gradually learned to disentangle the forces of nature, and because we have contrived, by strict obedience to their laws, to capture them and to divert them to the gratification of our own needs.”
- Source: George (Alfred Léon) Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (1927), Vol. 1, 3-4.
- Keywords: History_quotes Civilization_quotes Tolerance_quotes Completion_quotes Explanation_quotes Science_quotes Progress_quotes Doubt_quotes Sufficient_quotes Constitute_quotes Essential_quotes Differences_quotes Early_quotes Course_quotes Period_quotes Country_quotes Small_quotes Saint_quotes Great_quotes Art_quotes Intelligence_quotes Old_quotes Year_quotes Greece_quotes Inferior_quotes Knowledge_quotes Extension_quotes Accuracy_quotes Acquire_quotes System_quotes Positive_quotes Humanity_quotes Activity_quotes True_quotes Cumulative_quotes World_quotes Depth_quotes Precision_quotes Certainty_quotes Gradual_quotes Learning_quotes Disentangle_quotes Force_quotes Nature_quotes Contrive_quotes Strict_quotes Obedience_quotes Law_quotes Capture_quotes Divergence_quotes Gratify_quotes Need_quotes Progressive_quotes
Adam_Smith
Just and Unjust Regulation
“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.”
- Source: Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, England: W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Book I chapter X.
- Keywords: Legislation_quotes Attempt_quotes Regulation_quotes Differences_quotes Between_quotes Master_quotes Workman_quotes Counsellor_quotes Justice_quotes Equitable_quotes Favor_quotes
Three Great Orders
“The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country... naturally divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the rent of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people; to those who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit. These are the three great, original, and constituent orders of every civilised society... The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from what has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs the one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other... The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first... Employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society... But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary... The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two... The interest of the dealers... is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
- Source: Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, England: W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Book I chapter XI.
- Keywords: Whole_quotes Annual_quotes Produce_quotes Land_quotes Labor_quotes Country_quotes Natural_quotes Division_quotes Observation_quotes Part_quotes Rent_quotes Wage_quotes Labor_quotes Profit_quotes Stock_quotes Constitute_quotes Revenue_quotes Differences_quotes Order_quotes Original_quotes Civilization_quotes Society_quotes Interest_quotes Appearance_quotes Say_quotes Strict_quotes Inseperable_quotes Connection_quotes Generality_quotes Promotion_quotes Obstruction_quotes Employer_quotes Employment_quotes Motion_quotes Prosperity_quotes Fall_quotes Declension_quotes Contrary_quotes Dealer_quotes Opposite_quotes Public_quotes Market_quotes Competition_quotes Proposal_quotes Law_quotes Regulation_quotes Commerce_quotes Listening_quotes Precaution_quotes Careful_quotes Examination_quotes Scrupulous_quotes Suspicion_quotes Adoption_quotes Attention_quotes Man_quotes Deception_quotes Oppression_quotes Occasional_quotes
William_Whewell
Prediction of Facts
“We have here spoken of the prediction of facts of the same kind as those from which our rule was collected. But the evidence in favour of our induction is of a much higher and more forcible character when it enables us to explain and determine cases of a kind different from those which were contemplated in the formation of our hypothesis. The instances in which this has occurred, indeed, impress us with a conviction that the truth of our hypothesis is certain. No accident could give rise to such an extraordinary coincidence. No false supposition could, after being adjusted to one class of phenomena, so exactly represent a different class, when the agreement was unforeseen and contemplated. That rules springing from remote and unconnected quarters should thus leap to the same point, can only arise from that being where truth resides.”
- From the book 'The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded Upon Their History', Volume 2. by William Whewell. Publication date 1840. Page 230. Online at https://ia800209.us.archive.org/19/items/philosophyinduc00whewgoog/philosophyinduc00whewgoog.pdf.
- Keywords: Speak_quotes Prediction_quotes Fact_quotes Kind_quotes Rule_quotes Collect_quotes Evidence_quotes Favor_quotes Induction_quotes High_quotes Force_quotes Character_quotes Enable_quotes Explanation_quotes Determine_quotes Differences_quotes Contemplate_quotes Formation_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Instance_quotes Occur_quotes Impress_quotes Conviction_quotes Truth_quotes Certainty_quotes Accident_quotes Extraordinary_quotes Coincidence_quotes False_quotes Supposition_quotes Adjustment_quotes Phenomena_quotes Exact_quotes Representation_quotes Class_quotes Agreement_quotes Unforeseen_quotes Spring_quotes Remote_quotes Unconnect_quotes Quarter_quotes Leap_quotes Point_quotes Arise_quotes Reside_quotes
Shoshana_Zuboff
Technology Leadership
“The questions that we face today are finally about leadership. Will there be leaders who are able to recognize the historical moment and the choices it presents? Will they find ways to create the organizational conditions in which new visions, new concepts, and a new language of workplace relations can emerge? Will they be able to create organizational innovations that can exploit the unique capacities of the new technology and thus mobilize their organization's productive potential to meet the heightened rigors of global competition? Will there be leaders who understand the crucial role that human beings from each organizational stratum can play in adding value to the production of goods and services? If not, we will be stranded in a new world with old solutions. We will suffer through the unintended consequences of change, because we have failed to understand this technology and how it differs from what came before.”
- Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 12. ISBN:0465032125.
- Keywords: Technology_quotes Leadership_quotes History_quotes Choice_quotes Organization_quotes Vision_quotes Innovation_quotes Workplace_quotes Language_quotes Exploitation_quotes Potential_quotes Competition_quotes Global_quotes Human_Resources_quotes Production_quotes Goods_quotes Services_quotes World_quotes Obsolescence_quotes Change_quotes Suffering_quotes Stranded_quotes Consequence_quotes Unintentional_quotes Failure_quotes Understanding_quotes Differences_quotes Question_quotes Today_quotes Present_quotes Find_quotes Create_quotes Condition_quotes Concept_quotes Relation_quotes Emerge_quotes Unique_quotes Capability_quotes New_quotes Mobilize_quotes Height_quotes Rigor_quotes Leader_quotes Crucial_quotes Role_quotes Human_quotes Stratum_quotes Play_quotes Add_quotes Value_quotes Old_quotes Solution_quotes
Driver of Learning
“To be a ‘driver of learning’ requires a vastly different talent.”
- Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 280. ISBN:0465032125.
- Keywords: Driver_quotes Learning_quotes Differences_quotes Talent_quotes Education_quotes Vast_quotes Require_quotes