The Knowledge Machine How Irrationality Created Modern Science

mind-and-cognition

• Science is a machine for motivating disputatious humans to carry out tedious measurements they would otherwise not care to undertake.

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• Even the darkest demonstrations of scientists' human frailty take on a new hue when plausibility rankings are understood as essential to scientific reasoning.

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• The secrets of the universe lie in minute structures, nearly indiscernible details, patterns only the most sensitive instruments can detect — the Tychonic principle.

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obedience-and-authority

• The iron rule obliges contending scientists to engage each other with observable fact alone; theological and philosophical contentions are ruled out.

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• Newton led two intellectual lives in parallel: one as an orthodox Fellow, publicly conforming; one as an anti-trinitarian heretic, kept entirely secret.

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ambition-and-status

• Whewell's long-distance leap up the social ladder had its costs; surrounded by his social betters, he was sensitive and proud, quick to take offense.

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