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About this quote

What does it mean?
Humans interpret nature; science provides the accurate interpretation.
In plain terms
People try to understand nature, and science gives the correct understanding.
What can you take from it?
Rely on scientific methods for accurate knowledge of the natural world.

Where it applies

  • education
  • policy making

Putting it to work

  • promoting scientific literacy
  • using data-driven decisions

Questions to consider

  • How do biases affect interpretation?
  • What role does intuition play?

Another view

Interpretations can be influenced by cultural biases.

More from William Whewell

  1. In art, truth is a means to an end; in science, it is the only end.

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  2. The system becomes more coherent as it is further extended. The elements which we require for explaining a new class of facts are already contained in our syst…

    Permalink to quote #7
  3. The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them.

    Permalink to quote #10

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