The case I shall find evidence for is that when literature arrives, it expels science.
Peter MedawarThe fact that scientists do not consciously practice a formal methodology is very poor evidence that no such methodology exists. It could be said-has been said-that there is a distinctive methodology of science which scientists practice unwittingly, like the chap in Moliere who found that all his life, unknowingly, he had been speaking prose.
Peter MedawarPsychoanalytic theory is the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century and a terminal product as well-something akin to a dinosaur or zeppelin in the history of ideas, a vast structure of radically unsound design and with no posterity.
Peter MedawarIt is the great glory as well as the great threat of science that everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute.
Peter MedawarDeductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. The theatrical illusion is shattered if we ask what goes on behind the scenes. In real life discovery and justification are almost always different processes.
Peter MedawarWe cannot point to a single definitive solution of any one of the problems that confront us — political, economic, social or moral, that is, having to do with the conduct of life. We are still beginners, and for that reason may hope to improve. To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind. There is no need to be dismayed by the fact that we cannot yet envisage a definitive solution of our problems, a resting-place beyond which we need not try to go.
Peter Medawar