Hypothesis is a toll which can cause trouble if not used properly. We must be ready to abandon our hypothesis as soon as it is shown to be inconsistent with the facts.
William Ian Beardmore BeveridgeElaborate apparatus plays an important part in the science of to-day, but I sometimes wonder if we are not inclined to forget that the most important instrument in research must always be the mind of man.
William Ian Beardmore BeveridgeMany discoveries must have been stillborn or smothered at birth. We know only those which survived.
William Ian Beardmore BeveridgeNo one believes an hypothesis except its originator but everyone believes an experiment except the experimenter. Most people are ready to believe something based on experiment but the experimenter knows the many little things that could have gone wrong in the experiment.
William Ian Beardmore BeveridgeCultivate an intellectual habit of subordinating one's opinions and wishes to objective evidence and a reverence for things as they really are.
William Ian Beardmore BeveridgeThe Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.
William Ian Beardmore Beveridge