Importance quotes

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Robert_N_Britcher

Important Development Things

“The single, most important thing is that the individual programmer needs to be given total responsibility and control of the programming, including its function... eliminate project design and review as an exhaustive and rigorous process. Most of the design and review should occur as the program is written. ... Monitor progress on the project by talking to the individual programmers as [code] is being written. ... You must trust developers on the project to create a good product. ... Sometimes there are failures. ... The important thing is to fail quickly so you have time to find another approach. ... Developers must also feel free to say what they think to their supervisor. ... Managers should be the best programmers; ...There should be no overtime pay. ... Use profit-sharing and bonuses to get awesome products. ... Developers should each get their own office. ... Eliminate the dress code. Avoid meetings at all costs. ... Writing software is a lot like writing a book. Almost anyone can write garbage; very few can write a best-seller.”
  • Source: Britcher, Robert N. (1999). The Limits of Software: People, Projects, and Perspectives. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-43323-0. Page 155-156.
Keywords: Importance_quotes Programmer_quotes Responsibility_quotes Control_quotes Programming_quotes Function_quotes Design_quotes Review_quotes Rigorous_quotes Heavy_quotes Methodology_quotes Monitoring_quotes Progress_quotes Project_quotes Communication_quotes Trust_quotes Development_quotes Failure_quotes Quickness_quotes Thinking_quotes Expression_quotes Overtime_quotes Management_quotes Profit_Sharing_quotes Bonus_quotes Product_quotes Excellence_quotes Office_quotes Dress_Code_quotes Meeting_quotes Software_quotes Writing_quotes Garbage_quotes Best_Seller_quotes Compensation_quotes Eliminate_quotes Occur_quotes Coding_quotes Talk_quotes Code_quotes Developer_quotes Create_quotes Good_quotes Say_quotes Think_quotes Supervisor_quotes Manager_quotes Best_quotes Awesome_quotes Book_quotes

David_Deutsch

Decision Making

“It is a mistake to conceive of choice and decision-making as a process of selecting from existing options according to a fixed formula. That omits the most important element of decision-making, namely the creation of new options.”
  • Source: David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (2011).
Keywords: Mistake_quotes Conception_quotes Choice_quotes Decision_quotes Process_quotes Selection_quotes Creativity_quotes Fomula_quotes Importance_quotes Option_quotes

Paul_Dirac

Beauty in Equations

“I think there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment. It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty into one's equations, and if one has a really sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.”
  • Source: Paul Dirac, "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature". Article republished from May 1963 issue of Scientific American, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.
Keywords: Moral_quotes Story_quotes Importance_quotes Beauty_quotes Equation_quotes Experiment_quotes Insight_quotes Progress_quotes Elegance_quotes Fit_quotes Work_quotes View_quotes Line_quotes

Michael_Faraday

Self-Correction

“Among those points of self-education which take up the form of mental discipline, there is one of great importance, and, moreover, difficult to deal with, because it involves an internal conflict, and equally touches our vanity and our ease. It consists in the tendency to deceive ourselves regarding all we wish for, and the necessity of resistance to these desires. It is impossible for any one who has not been constrained, by the course of his occupation and thoughts, to a habit of continual self-correction, to be aware of the amount of error in relation to judgment arising from this tendency. The force of the temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them, is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, more or less, active promoters of error. In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.”
  • Source: Michael Faraday. Royal Institution Lecture On Mental Education (6 May 1854), as reprinted in Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, by Michael Faraday, 1859, pp 474-475.
Keywords: Self-Education_quotes Autodidact_quotes Mental_quotes Discipline_quotes Importance_quotes Conflict_quotes Vanity_quotes Tendency_quotes Self-Deception_quotes Wish_quotes Resistance_quotes Desire_quotes Impossibility_quotes Constraint_quotes Occupation_quotes Thinking_quotes Habit_quotes Self-Correction_quotes Error_quotes Judgment_quotes Temptation_quotes Urge_quotes Evidence_quotes Disregard_quotes Opposition_quotes Wonder_quotes Promotion_quotes Practice_quotes Self-Abnegation_quotes Tribalism_quotes Common_Sense_quotes

Martin_Fowler

Architecture and Design

“I define architecture as a word we use when we want to talk about design but want to puff it up to make it sound important.”
Keywords: Architecture_quotes Design_quotes Importance_quotes Puff_quotes

Glenn_Frank

Journalism and Facts

"Journalism must find the facts, it must not prejudge things in terms of conservatism or liberalism or radicalism; it must not decide in advance that it is to be conformist or non-conformist; it cannot fly in the face of facts without courting ultimate disaster. Journalism must focus the facts; facts are not important for their own sake; they are important only as a basis for action; journalism must focus the facts it finds upon the issues its readers face. Journalism must filter the facts; it must with conscientious care separate the facts from admixtures of prejudice, passion, partisanship, and selfish interest; facts that are diluted, colored, or perverted are valueless as a basis for action. Journalism must face the facts; it must learn that the energy spent in trying to find ways to get around, under, or over the facts is wasted energy; facts have a ruthless way of winning the day sooner or later. Journalism must follow the facts; journalism must say of facts as Job said, of God: though they slay us, yet shall we trust them; if the facts threaten to upset a paper's cherished policy, it always pays the journalist to reexamine his policy; that way lies realism, and realism is the ultimate good."
  • Source: Glenn Frank, spoken during an address as president of the Wisconsin local chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, at its first annual Matrix Table (9 Jan 1926). quoted in 'Journalism News and Notes', in Robert S. Crawford (ed.), The Wisconsin Alumni Magazine (Feb 1926), 27, No. 4, 101.
Keywords: Journalism_quotes Fact_quotes Find_quotes Prejudice_quotes Conservative_quotes Liberal_quotes Radical_quotes Conformity_quotes Disaster_quotes Focus_quotes Importance_quotes Action_quotes Face_quotes Careful_quotes Filter_quotes Separation_quotes Passion_quotes Partisanship_quotes Self-Interest_quotes Dilution_quotes Color_quotes Perverted_quotes Value_quotes Energy_quotes Ruthless_quotes Winning_quotes Day_quotes Follow_quotes Trust_quotes Policy_quotes Realism_quotes Good_quotes Issue_quotes Conscientious_quotes Mixture_quotes Waste_quotes Job(topic)_quotes Slay_quotes Treat_quotes Newspaper_quotes Cherish_quotes Pay_quotes Reexamine_quotes Ultimate_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

Fred_Hoyle

Scientific Hypotheses

“It is often held that scientific hypotheses are constructed, and are to be constructed, only after a detailed weighing of all possible evidence bearing on the matter, and that then and only then may one consider, and still only tentatively, any hypotheses. This traditional view however, is largely incorrect, for not only is it absurdly impossible of application, but it is contradicted by the history of the development of any scientific theory. What happens in practice is that by intuitive insight, or other inexplicable inspiration, the theorist decides that certain features seem to him more important than others and capable of explanation by certain hypotheses. Then basing his study on these hypotheses the attempt is made to deduce their consequences. The successful pioneer of theoretical science is he whose intuitions yield hypotheses on which satisfactory theories can be built, and conversely for the unsuccessful (as judged from a purely scientific standpoint).”
  • Source: Sir Fred Hoyle, Co-author with British astronomer, Raymond Arthur Lyttleton (1911-95), 'The Internal Constitution of the Stars', Occasional Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society 1948, 12, 90.
Keywords: Science_quotes Hypothesis_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Construction_quotes Weighing_quotes Evidence_quotes Consideration_quotes Absurdity_quotes Impossibility_quotes Contradiction_quotes History_quotes Theory_quotes Intuition_quotes Inspiration_quotes Inexplicable_quotes Importance_quotes Explanation_quotes Study_quotes Deduction_quotes Consequence_quotes Success_quotes Tradition_quotes Insight_quotes Feature_quotes Pioneer_quotes Satisfactory_quotes Unsuccessful_quotes

Carl_Jung

Unknown Potential

“Here and there it happened in my practice that a patient grew beyond himself because of unknown potentialities, and this became an experience of prime importance to me. I had learned in the meanwhile that the greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. I therefore asked myself whether this possibility of outgrowing, that is, further psychic development, was not the normal thing, and therefore remaining stuck in a conflict was what was pathological. Everyone must possess that higher level, at least in embryonic form, and in favorable circumstances must be able to develop this possibility.”
Keywords: Practice_quotes Patient_quotes Growth_quotes Potential_quotes Experience_quotes Importance_quotes Problem_quotes Life_quotes Insoluble_quotes Polarity_quotes Self-Regulation_quotes Solution_quotes Embryo_quotes Circumstance_quotes Development_quotes Possibility_quotes Outgrow_quotes Psychic_quotes Conflict_quotes Pathological_quotes Level_quotes Form_quotes

Alexander_Kossiakoff et al.

Skeptical Positive Thinking

"The Power of Skeptical Positive Thinking... is meant to capture an important characteristic of successful systems engineering. The skeptical part is important to temper the traditional optimism of the design specialist regarding the probability of success of a chosen design approach. It is the driving force for the insistence of validation of the approach selected at the earliest possible opportunity. The other dimension of skepticism, which is directly related to the characteristic of positive thinking, refers to the reaction in the face of failure or apparent failure of a selected technique or design approach. Many design specialists who encounter an unexpected failure are plunged into despair. The systems engineer, on the other hand, cannot afford the luxury of hand wringing."
  • Source:Kossiakoff, Alexander; Sweet, William N.; Seymour, Samuel J.; Biemer, Steven M.. 'Systems Engineering Principles and Practice'. 2011. Wiley. Kindle Edition. Section 1.6 page 23.
Keywords: Power_quotes Skepticism_quotes Positive_quotes Thinking_quotes Importance_quotes Success_quotes System_quotes Engineering_quotes Optimism_quotes Design_quotes Specialization_quotes Probability_quotes Validation_quotes Early_quotes Opportunity_quotes Failure_quotes Despair_quotes Luxury_quotes Characteristic_quotes Drive_quotes Force_quotes Insist_quotes Approach_quotes Select_quotes Dimension_quotes Direct_quotes Relate_quotes Reaction_quotes Face_quotes Apparent_quotes Technique_quotes Encounter_quotes Unexpected_quotes Plunge_quotes Afford_quotes Hand_quotes Wring_quotes

Lawrence_M_Krauss

Biggest Misconception

“The biggest misconception about science is that it tells us what's true. It doesn't do that at all. It tells us what's false. And by knowing what's false, it's like Sherlock Holmes, you get rid of what's false and you hope what's left is closer to the truth. But you never know that any theory is absolutely true, and the only way to find out to make progress is to be able to rule things out. So falsifiability is very important.”
  • Source: Panel comments by Lawrence Krauss at Perimeter Institute's festival "Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future" in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, October 2009. Available online as Youtube video "Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carroll, Neil Turok & Others - Quantum to Cosmos" at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ftH1yig-HDU (accessed 2017) at about 27 minutes into the video.
Keywords: Big_quotes Misconception_quotes Science_quotes Truth_quotes False_quotes Knowledge_quotes Deduction_quotes Elimination_quotes Theory_quotes Absolute_quotes Find_quotes Progress_quotes Rule_quotes Falsification_quotes Importance_quotes Holmes(topic)_quotes Rid_quotes Hope_quotes Closer_quotes Out_quotes

Benoît_Mandelbrot

Engineering and Science

“Engineering is too important to wait for science.”
  • Source: Quoted in the article 'Fractal Finance' by Greg Phelan, Yale Economic Review, Fall, 2005.
Keywords: Engineering_quotes Science_quotes Importance_quotes Wait_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.”
  • Note: Frank Rhodes gave credit for the kettle analogy to Dr. Douglas Spanner.
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

John_von_Neumann

Gradual Development of Theory

“What is important is the gradual development of a theory, based on a careful analysis of the ... facts. ... Its first applications are necessarily to elementary problems where the result has never been in doubt and no theory is actually required. At this early stage the application serves to corroborate the theory. The next stage develops when the theory is applied to somewhat more complicated situations in which it may already lead to a certain extent beyond the obvious and familiar. Here theory and application corroborate each other mutually. Beyond lies the field of real success: genuine prediction by theory. It is well known that all mathematized sciences have gone through these successive stages of evolution.”
  • Source: John von Neumann, 'Formulation of the Economic Problem' in Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1964), 8. Reprinted in John Von Neumann, F. Bródy (ed.) and Tibor Vámos (ed.), The Neumann Compendium (2000), 416.
Keywords: Importance_quotes Gradual_quotes Development_quotes Theory_quotes Careful_quotes Analysis_quotes Fact_quotes Application_quotes Elementary_quotes Problem_quotes Result_quotes Doubt_quotes Requirements_quotes Early_quotes Stage_quotes Service_quotes Corroborate_quotes Complexity_quotes Situation_quotes Lead_quotes Obvious_quotes Familiar_quotes Mutual_quotes Success_quotes Genuine_quotes Prediction_quotes Mathematics_quotes Science_quotes Evolution_quotes Beyond_quotes

Alan_Perlis

Useful Software Systems

“We recognize that a practical problem of considerable difficulty and importance has arisen: The successful design, production and maintenance of useful software systems. The importance is obvious and the more so since we see only greater growth in demands and requirements in the future. The consequences of poor performance, poor design, instability and mismatching of promise and performance are not going to be limited to the computing fraternity, or even their nearest neighbors, but will affect considerable sections of our society whose ability to forgive is inversely proportional to their ignorance of the difficulties we face. The source of difficulty is distributed through the whole problem, easy to identify, and yet its cure is hard to pinpoint so that systematic improvement can be gotten.”
Keywords: Usefulness_quotes Practical_quotes Problem_quotes Difficulty_quotes Importance_quotes Arise_quotes Success_quotes Design_quotes Production_quotes Maintain_quotes Software_quotes System_quotes Obvious_quotes Great_quotes Growth_quotes Demand_quotes Requirements_quotes Consequence_quotes Poor_quotes Performance_quotes Instability_quotes Mismatch_quotes Promise_quotes Go_quotes Limitation_quotes Computing_quotes Fraternity_quotes Near_quotes Neighbor_quotes Affect_quotes Considerable_quotes Section_quotes Society_quotes Ability_quotes Forgiveness_quotes Inverse_quotes Proportion_quotes Ignorance_quotes Face_quotes Source_quotes Distributed_quotes Easy_quotes Identify_quotes Cure_quotes Hard_quotes Pinpoint_quotes Improve_quotes

Complex Information in the Mind

“One can only display complex information in the mind. Like seeing, movement or flow or alteration of view is more important than the static picture, no matter how lovely.”
Keywords: Complexity_quotes Display_quotes Information_quotes Mind_quotes Movement_quotes Flow_quotes Alteration_quotes View_quotes Importance_quotes Static_quotes Picture_quotes Beauty_quotes Lovely_quotes See_quotes

Computing Fun

“I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.”
  • Source: Quoted in The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Hal Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman and Julie Sussman (McGraw-Hill, 2nd edition, 1996).
Keywords: Thinking_quotes Importance_quotes Computer_Science_quotes Computing_quotes Fun_quotes Pay_quotes Customer_quotes Shaft_quotes Complaint_quotes Serious_quotes Responsibility_quotes Success_quotes Error_quotes Error-Free_quotes Perfect_quotes Machine_quotes Quality_quotes Defect_quotes Stretch_quotes Innovation_quotes New_quotes Direction_quotes House_quotes Field_quotes Loss_quotes Sense_quotes Missionary_quotes Evangelism_quotes Bible_quotes Salesman_quotes World_quotes Knowledge_quotes Learning_quotes Feel_quotes Key_quotes Hand_quotes Intelligence_quotes Ability_quotes Sight_quotes First_quotes Extraordinary_quotes Science_quotes Learn_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.”
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

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

Herbert_Simon

Markets and Voting

“We ordinarily describe capitalist societies as depending mostly on markets for coordination and socialist societies as depending mostly on hierarchic organizations and planning, but this is a gross oversimplification, for it ignores the uses of voting in democratic societies of either kind, and it ignores the great importance of large organizations in modern 'market' societies.”
Keywords: Ordinary_quotes Description_quotes Capitalism_quotes Society_quotes Dependence_quotes Market_quotes Coordination_quotes Socialism_quotes Hierarchy_quotes Organization_quotes Plan_quotes Simplification_quotes Ignorance_quotes Vote_quotes Democracy_quotes Importance_quotes Modern_quotes

John_Tukey

First Use of the Term Software

“Today the ‘software’ comprising the carefully planned interpretive routines, compilers, and other aspects of automative programming are at least as important to the modern electronic calculator as its ‘hardware’ of tubes, transistors, wires, tapes and the like.”
  • Source: John Wilder Tukey. A paper entitled "The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics". The American Mathematical Monthly, volume 65, 1958. DOI: 10.2307/2310294.
Keywords: Today_quotes Software_quotes Comprise_quotes Careful_quotes Plan_quotes Interpretation_quotes Routine_quotes Compilation_quotes Aspect_quotes Automation_quotes Programming_quotes Importance_quotes Modern_quotes Calculator_quotes Hardware_quotes Tube_quotes Transistor_quotes Wire_quotes Tape_quotes

Gerald_Weinberg

Programming Not Individual

“But there is much evidence, as we shall see presently, to argue that the proper study of programming is done at the level of the programming social unit. Not that the individual level is unimportant, but we might start by asking why, if the average programmer spends two-thirds of his time working with other people rather than working alone (yes, it's true!), that 99 percent of the studies have been on individual programmers.”
  • Source: Chapter 3. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
Keywords: Evidence_quotes Programming_quotes Society_quotes Group_quotes Team_quotes Organization_quotes Level_quotes Individual_quotes Importance_quotes Programmer_quotes Time_quotes Productivity_quotes Research_quotes Study_quotes Social_quotes Unimportant_quotes Why_quotes Average_quotes People_quotes Coordination_quotes Cooperation_quotes

Allen_Wheelis

Science Accuracy Certainty

“Science would have us believe that such accuracy, leading to certainty, is the only criterion of knowledge, would make the trial of Galileo the paradigm of the two points of view which aspire to truth, would suggest, that is, that the cardinals represent only superstition and repression, while Galileo represents freedom. But there is another criterion which is systematically neglected in this elevation of science. Man does not now — and will not ever — live by the bread of scientific method alone. He must deal with life and death, with love and cruelty and despair, and so must make conjectures of great importance which may or may not be true and which do not lend themselves to experimentation: It is better to give than to receive; Love thy neighbor as thyself; Better to risk slavery through non-violence than to defend freedom with murder. We must deal with such propositions, must decide whether they are true, whether to believe them, whether to act on them — and scientific method is no help for by their nature these matters lie forever beyond the realm of science.”
  • Source: Allen Wheelis, In The End of the Modern Age (1973), 89.
Keywords: Science_quotes Belief_quotes Accuracy_quotes Lead_quotes Certainty_quotes Criteria_quotes Knowledge_quotes Trial_quotes Galileo(topic)_quotes Paradigm_quotes Point_quotes View_quotes Aspiration_quotes Truth_quotes Suggestion_quotes Cardinal_quotes Representation_quotes Superstition_quotes Repression_quotes Freedom_quotes Systematic_quotes Neglect_quotes Elevation_quotes Humanity_quotes Bread_quotes Scientific_Method_quotes Deal_quotes Living_quotes Death_quotes Love_quotes Cruel_quotes Despair_quotes Conjecture_quotes Importance_quotes True_quotes Lend_quotes Experiment_quotes Better_quotes Give_quotes Recieve_quotes Neighbor_quotes Risk_quotes Slavery_quotes Violence_quotes Non-Violence_quotes Defend_quotes Murder_quotes Proposition_quotes Decision_quotes Act_quotes Help_quotes Nature_quotes Forever_quotes Beyond_quotes Realm_quotes Man_quotes Method_quotes

Shoshana_Zuboff

Diminished Worker

“In diminishing the role of the worker's body in the labor process, industrial technology has also tended to diminish the importance of the worker. In creating jobs that require less human effort, industrial technology has also been used to create jobs that require less human talent.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 22. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Worker_quotes Humanity_quotes Diminish_quotes Labor_quotes Industrial_quotes Technology_quotes Importance_quotes Employment_quotes Work_quotes Job_quotes Effort_quotes Talent_quotes Role_quotes Body_quotes Process_quotes Create_quotes Require_quotes

Time Study Expert

“The time-study expert became the new focus of workers' antagonisms. Informal production quotas persisted and, in many cases, took on an overtly anti-management spirit. The union contract became the most important means for institutionalizing workers' instincts for self-preservation, as rationalization routed out the ordinary graces with which the workday had been laced. Concern over wages and hours, work rules, and working conditions began to replace the craftworker's culturally embedded practices of effort regulation. Overall, the purification of effort meant a heightened standard of labor discipline, and as such it widened the gulf between those who gave of their bodies in the service of production and those who did not.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 46. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Time_quotes Worker_quotes Production_quotes Quota_quotes Management_quotes Union_quotes Contract_quotes Importance_quotes Instinct_quotes Self-Preservation_quotes Reason_quotes Rational_quotes Compensation_quotes Hours_quotes Environment_quotes Condition_quotes Craft_quotes Culture_quotes Regulation_quotes Purification_quotes Effort_quotes Labor_quotes Discipline_quotes Body_quotes Taylorism_quotes Study_quotes Expert_quotes Focus_quotes Antagonism_quotes Informal_quotes Persist_quotes Anti-management_quotes Spirit_quotes Institutionalize_quotes Grace_quotes Workday_quotes Lace_quotes Wage_quotes Rule_quotes Embed_quotes Practice_quotes Height_quotes Standard_quotes Wide_quotes Gulf_quotes Service_quotes

Panoptic Power

“This rendering of panoptic power reflects an important evolution of the original concept. It rests on a new collectivism in which ‘the many' view themselves and each views ‘the other.' Horizontal visibility is created even as vertical visibility is intensified. The model is less one of Big Brother than of a workplace in which each member is explicitly empowered as his or her fellow worker's keeper. Instead of a single omniscient overseer, this panopticon relies upon shared custodianship of data that reflect mutually enacted behavior. This new collectivism is an important antidote to the unilateral use of panoptic power, but it is not a trouble-free ideal. Horizontal transparency breeds new human dilemmas as well.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 351. ISBN:0465032125.
Keywords: Panopticon_quotes Power_quotes Importance_quotes Evolution_quotes Originality_quotes Conception_quotes Collectivism_quotes Other_quotes Tribalism_quotes Visibility_quotes Horizontal_quotes Vertical_quotes Model_quotes Surveillance_quotes Workplace_quotes Empowerment_quotes Omniscience_quotes Informant_quotes Supervision_quotes Custodian_quotes Data_quotes Behavior_quotes Antidote_quotes Unilateral_quotes Whistle_Blower_quotes Trouble_quotes Transparency_quotes Humanity_quotes Dilemma_quotes Render_quotes Reflect_quotes Many_quotes View_quotes Create_quotes Intensify_quotes Big_quotes Brother_quotes Member_quotes Explicit_quotes Keeper_quotes Overseer_quotes Rely_quotes Share_quotes Mutual_quotes Enact_quotes Collective_quotes Free_quotes
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