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"And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry."
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"Every single phenomenon in the world, has a physical explanation underneath it. Finding the explanation depends on how far you are willing to go."

"The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests."

"And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation."

"I'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school."

"The principles behind explaining and educating the product or the elected official is similar, even though the actual execution of it is very, very different."

"It was much easier to explain the veil than to answer questions about the wounds."

"And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry."
Explore more quotes by Michael Polanyi

"Moreover, only a strong and united scientific opinion imposing the intrinsic value of scientific progress on society at large can elicit the support of scientific inquiry by the general public."

"I hold that the propositions embodied in natural science are not derived by any definite rule from the data of experience, and that they can neither be verified nor falsified by experience according to any definite rule."

"I shall suggest, on the contrary, that all communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, and that all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell."

"My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and works according to economic principles similar to those by which the production of material goods is regulated."

"These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premisses or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science."

"Admittedly, the body of scientists, as a whole, does uphold the authority of science over the lay public. It controls thereby also the process by which young men are trained to become members of the scientific profession."

"Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence."

"Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence."

"Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness."
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