27+ Anthony Standen Quotes On Education, Politics And Exploratory

Anthony Standen was an American journalist, author, and explorer. He wrote several books about his experiences in the Middle East and Central Asia, including his classic work, The Golden Road to Samarkand. Standen was also a correspondent for the New York Times and the National Geographic Society. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Anthony Standen on education, leadership, life.

Top 10 Anthony Standen Quotes

1. The dreadful cocksureness that is characteristic of scientists in bulk is not only quite foreign to the spirit of true science, it is not even justified by a superficial view.
2. Physicists, being in no way different from the rest of the population, have short memories for what is inconvenient.
3. Insight is not the same as scientific deduction, but even at that it may be more reliable than statistics.
4. Psychologists, like other scientists, pride themselves on being extremely modern, and therefore much better than any group of people that ever were before.
5. Psychologists pay lip service to the scientific method, and use it whenever it is convenient; but when it isn't they make wild leaps of their uncontrolled fancy.
6. [Scientists] define these [terms] in tight phrases which convey a meaning only to those who already understand it.
7. Survival of the fittest led to "nature red in tooth and claw" and this is not sufficiently wishy-washy for modern scientists.
8. There's many a true word spoken in jest; scientists are abominably solemn; therefore scientists miss many a true word.
9. Physical scientists probably deserve the reputation they enjoy for incorruptibility and unswerving devotion to pure truth. The reason for this is that it is not worth while to bribe them.
10. Such instances of the almost infinite unpredictability of man are known to social scientists, but they are no more affected by them than the asylum inmate is by being told that he is not Napoleon.

Anthony Standen Famous Quotes And Sayings

But regular biology, as an "ology," has to be "scientific," and this means in practice that it has to be made dull.... Everything has to be expressed in utterly impersonal terms. — Anthony Standen

Education, like everything else, goes in fads, and has the normal human tendency to put up with something bad for just so long, and then rush to the other extreme. — Anthony Standen

Evolution ... is really two theories, the vague theory and the precise theory. The vague theory has been abundantly proved.... The precise theory has never been proved at all. However, like relativity, it is accepted on faith.... On getting down to actual details, difficulties begin. — Anthony Standen

It is true that physics gives a wonderful training in precise, logical thinking-about physics. It really does depend upon accurate reproducible experiments, and upon framing hypotheses with the greatest possible freedom from dogmatic prejudice. And if these were the really important things in life, physics would be an essential study for everybody. — Anthony Standen

We are having wool pulled over our eyes if we let ourselves be convinced that scientists, taken as a group, are anything special in the way of brains. They are very ordinary professional men, and all they know is their own trade, just like all other professional men. There are some geniuses among them, just as there are mental giants in any other field of endeavor. — Anthony Standen

There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach "a healthy skepticism." They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific. — Anthony Standen

Scientists are convinced that they, as scientists, possess a number of very admirable human qualities, such as accuracy, observation, reasoning power, intellectual curiosity, tolerance, and even humility. — Anthony Standen

Science ... must be absorbed in order to inculcate that wonderful humility before the facts of nature that comes from close attention to a textbook, and that unwillingness to learn from Authority that comes from making almost verbatim lecture notes and handing them back to the professor. — Anthony Standen

The velocity of light occupies an extraordinary place in modern physics. It is lèse-majesté to make any criticism of the velocity of light. It is a sacred cow within a sacred cow, and it is just about the Absolutest Absolute in the history of human thought. — Anthony Standen

The really important questions in human life are hardly touched upon by psychologists. Do liars come to believe their own lies? Is pleasure the same as happiness? Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved, or not to be able to love? — Anthony Standen

A biologist, if he wishes to know how many toes a cat has, does not "frame the hypothesis that the number of feline digital extremities is 4, or 5, or 6," he simply looks at a cat and counts. A social scientist prefers the more long-winded expression every time, because it gives an entirely spurious impression of scientificness to what he is doing. — Anthony Standen

The first thing to realize about physics ... is its extraordinary indirectness.... For physics is not about the real world, it is about "abstractions" from the real world, and this is what makes it so scientific.... Theoretical physics runs merrily along with these unreal abstractions, but its conclusions are checked, at every possible point, by experiments. — Anthony Standen

Our advanced and fashionable thinkers are, naturally, out on a wide swing of the pendulum, away from the previous swing of the pendulum.... They seem to have an un-argue-out-able position, as is the manner of sophists, but this is no guarantee that they are right. — Anthony Standen

Chemists are, on the whole, like physicists, only 'less so'.They don't make quite the same wonderful mistakes, and much what they do is an art, related to cooking, instead of a true science. They have their moments, and their sources of legitimate pride. They don't split atoms, as the physicists do. They join them together, and a very praiseworthy activity that is. — Anthony Standen

Mr. Hillaire Belloc has pointed out that science has changed greatly, and for the worse, since it became popular. Some hundred years ago, or more, only very unusual, highly original spirits were attracted to science at all; scientific work was therefore carried out by men of exceptional intelligence. Now, scientists are turned out by mass production in our universities. — Anthony Standen

If you want to understand human beings, there are plenty of people to go to besides psychologists.... Most of these people are incapable of communicating their knowledge, but those who can communicate it are novelists. They are good novelists precisely because they are good psychologists. — Anthony Standen

As advertising always convinces the sponsor even more than the public, the scientists have become sold, and remain sold, on the idea that they have the key to the Absolute, and that nothing will do for Mr. Average Citizen but to stuff himself full of electrons. — Anthony Standen

Life Lessons by Anthony Standen

1. Anthony Standen's work emphasizes the importance of having a clear understanding of the environment and its complexities in order to make informed decisions.
2. He also stresses the need for collaboration and communication between different disciplines in order to achieve success.
3. Lastly, Standen's work highlights the importance of taking a holistic approach to problem-solving and the need to consider the long-term implications of decisions.