7 David Deutsch Quotes on Science

David Deutsch quotes on science

2. Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense...

3. The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy-but the ones that contain the deepest explanations.

4. The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

6. Reality contains not only evidence, but also the means (such as our minds, and our artefacts) of understanding it. There are mathematical symbols in physical reality. The fact that it is we who put them there does not make them any less physical. (Ch.3)

12. Mathematical knowledge may, just like our scientific knowledge, be deep and broad, it may be subtle and wonderfully explanatory, it may be uncontroversially accepted; but it cannot be certain. (Ch. 10)

15. Kuhn's theory suffers from a fatal flaw. It explains the succession from one paradigm to another in sociological or psychological terms, rather than as having primarily to do with the objective merit of the rival explanations. Yet unless one understands science as a quest for explanations, the fact that it does find successive explanations, each objectively better than the last, is inexplicable. (Ch. 13)

16. As I understand it, the claim is that the less you use Homeopathy, the better it works. Sounds plausible to me.[1]