We Must Alter Theory To Adapt It

Men Who Have Excessive Faith In Their Theories Or Ideas Are Not Only Ill Prepared For Making Discoveries; They Also Make Very Poor Observations. Of Necessity, They Observe With A Preconceived Idea, And When They Devise An Experiment, They Can See, In Its Results,only A Confirmation Of Their Theory. In This Way They Distort Observation And Often Neglect Very Important Facts Because They Do Not Further Their Aim.

The Better Educated We Are And The More Acquired Information We Have, The Better Prepared Shall We Find Our Minds For Making Great And Fruitful Discoveries.

Real Science Exists, Then, Only From The Moment When A Phenomenon Is Accurately Defined As To Its Nature And Rigorously Determined In Relation To Its Material Conditions, That Is, When Its Law Is Known. Before That, We Have Only Groping And Empiricism.

When We Meet A Fact Which Contradicts A Prevailing Theory, We Must Accept The Fact And Abandon The Theory, Even When The Theory Is Supported By Great Names And Generally Accepted.

We Must Alter Theory To Adapt It To Nature, But Not Nature To Adapt It To Theory.‎