more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
What is the use of being a genius, unless with the same scientific evidence as other men, one can reach more truth than they?
Gist of Idea
Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence
Source
William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.40)
Book Ref
James,William: 'Selected Writings of William James', ed/tr. Bird,Graham [Everyman 1995], p.40
A Reaction
This is aimed at Clifford's famous principle. He isn't actually contraverting the principle, but it is a nice point about evidence. Simple empiricists think detectives only have to stare at the evidence and the solution creates itself.
Related Idea
Idea 6587 It is always wrong to believe things on insufficient evidence [Clifford]
| 6026 | How can you investigate without some preconception of your object? [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 12109 | We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte] |
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| 15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
| 3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
| 3587 | Seeing electrons in a cloud chamber requires theory [Williams,M] |
| 16851 | The inference to observables and unobservables is almost the same, so why distinguish them? [Lipton] |
| 6792 | If theories need observation, and observations need theories, how do we start? [Bird] |