Thursday, October 14, 2010

Quote of the Day - Science and Schizophrenia

"Generally speaking, the systems of natural science do not differ from schizophrenic systems because of any difference in a desire for a unifying logical integration. The difference lies solely in the treatment of empiric data. With systems of natural science, the empiric data are primary and the theory secondary; at every step the logical implications of the theory are tested empirically, with the theory modified in the light of the empiric observations. With schizophrenic systems, on the other hand, the theory comes first and the facts are selected, defined, and correlated for the sake of buttressing the theory..."* 
——George Kingsley Zipf 

*Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort: An Introduction to Human Ecology, p. 304

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