The progress of science is much more muddled than is depicted in most history books. This is especially true of theoretical physics, partly because history is written by the victorious.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Although scientists can often be as resistant to new ideas as anyone, the process of science ensures that, over time, good ideas and theories prevail.
Since the Renaissance, a concept called 'progress' has been baked into our society. Progress - founded on an accumulation of knowledge through experience (and in the case of science, through experiment). To build on the past rather than endlessly relive it. That's what separates us from the beasts.
In this respect, the history of science, like the history of all civilization, has gone through cycles.
I think it's unfortunate when people say that there is just one true story of science. For one thing, there are many different sciences, and historians will tell different stories corresponding to different things.
We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school.
I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.
There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
To understand a science, it is necessary to know its history.
The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics - greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.