Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking.”
Carl Sagan · Thinkers beyond philosophy · Modern · 1990
What does it mean?
A stock of results is not the whole of science. The durable part, he says, is a way of thinking, and it works by letting facts in when they cross a prior belief. The usual reading treats the sentence as a defence of method over memorised conclusions. A competing reading hears that facts do not matter, only a posture of openness, which the same essay does not say. He thinks the way of thinking is what produces a body of knowledge worth having. The sentence is the 1990 Skeptical Inquirer essay. Way of thinking means the habits, including the willingness to be corrected. It does not mean a personality.
Did Carl Sagan really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. His English in that 1990 essay. He adds that this is central to science's success, and that science invites us to let the facts in even when they do not fit our preconceptions.
Where it comes from
Why We Need to Understand Science, Skeptical Inquirer, volume 14, number 3 (Spring 1990)
Approximate date: 1990.
How to use it
A pupil in a Cardiff school who can recite a result and cannot say what would count against it has the body of knowledge in the thin sense. Ask for the way of thinking. The result can stay. The question is whether it is held as science or as a list.
A mindset reading
Openness without a test is not yet the way he means. The baloney kit, five years later, is the list of habits. This sentence is the claim that those habits are the subject.
Understand the philosophy
Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1990. The key contrast is body of knowledge and way of thinking. Chapter 17 of The Demon-Haunted World puts the two attitudes side by side: openness to strange ideas, and ruthless scrutiny. The 1990 sentence is the shorter form of that marriage. It is not an attack on learning the results.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
A stock of results is not the whole of science. The durable part, he says, is a way of thinking, and it works by letting facts in when they cross a prior belief. The usual reading treats the sentence as a defence of method over memorised conclusions. A competing reading hears that facts do not matter, only a posture of openness, which the same essay does not say. He thinks the way of thinking is what produces a body of knowledge worth having. The sentence is the 1990 Skeptical Inquirer essay. Way of thinking means the habits, including the willingness to be corrected. It does not mean a personality.
Did Carl Sagan really say this?
Well attested. His English in that 1990 essay. He adds that this is central to science's success, and that science invites us to let the facts in even when they do not fit our preconceptions.
Which work is it in?
Why We Need to Understand Science, Skeptical Inquirer, volume 14, number 3 (Spring 1990) Approximate date: 1990.