What distinguishes the language of science from language as we ordinarily understand the word? ... What science strives for is an utmost acuteness and clarity of concepts as regards their mutual relation and their correspondence to sensory data.
The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a simple datum of experience.
[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. ... But you don't reply to critics: "Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a really good idea. I'm very fond of it. It's done you no harm. Please don't attack it." That's not the way it goes. The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste any neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor.
I remember when I was in Chicago and data started coming out that when black folks walk into an auto dealership, and women, too, to some degree, they are automatically given higher quotes, worse deals. And this was just documented extensively across auto dealerships around the country. There was a tax being imposed on black folks. By collecting that data, you can construct policies to combat that.
Soon I knew the craft of experimental physics was beyond me - it was the sublime quality of patience - patience in accumulating data, patience with recalcitrant equipment - which I sadly lacked.
I was really intrigued by the idea of using live streams of data that's relevant to real people, and that would allow us to reflect and learn about ourselves.
As soon as science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms. We call such a system of thought a theory. The theory finds the justification for its existence in the fact that it correlates a large number of single observations, and it is just here that the 'truth' of the theory lies.
I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.
Here I shall add that the concept of change, and with it the concept of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time. & Motion, for example, presupposes the perception of something movable. But space considered in itself contains nothing movable; consequently motion must be something which is found in space only through experience -in other words, is an empirical datum.
The distinction between right and wrong ("la distinction du bien et du mal", Fr.), is nothing else than their unyielding (or implacable) opposition; thus the moral consciousness is an innate and intimate revelation of the absolute, which goes beyond (or goes pass, or exceed) every empirical data (or given information). It is only on these principles that we will be able to establish ("pourront être édifiées", Fr.) the real basis of morality.
Our intelligence communities spend a lot of time and effort gathering a lot of strands and a lot of data [on Russian hacking]. There are times where they're very cautious and they say, "We think this is what happened, but we're not certain."