Haldane Inc Quotes & Sayings

Einstein - the greatest Jew since Jesus. I have no doubt that Einstein's name will still be remembered and revered when Lloyd George, Foch and William Hohenzollern share with Charlie Chaplin that ineluctable oblivion which awaits the uncreative mind. — John B. S. Haldane

There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god. — John B. S. Haldane

Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics. — John B. S. Haldane

A fairly bright boy is far more intelligent and far better company than the average adult. — John B. S. Haldane

Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up to date in their chemical knowledge. — John B. S. Haldane

Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public. — John B. S. Haldane

An ounce of algebra is worth a ton of verbal argument. — John B. S. Haldane

I will give up my belief in evolution if someone finds a fossil rabbit in the Precambrian. — John B. S. Haldane

This is my prediction for the future: Whatever hasn't happened will happen, and no one will be safe from it. — John B. S. Haldane

The four stages of acceptance:
1. This is worthless nonsense.
2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view.
3. This is true, but quite unimportant.
4. I always said so."

(Review of The Truth About Death, in: Journal of Genetics 1963, Vol. 58, p.464) — J.B.S. Haldane

I think, however, that so long as our present economic and national systems continue, scientific research has little to fear. — John B. S. Haldane

The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms. — John B. S. Haldane

Perforated eardrums were quite common16, too; but, as Haldane reassuringly noted in one of his essays, 'the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment. — Bill Bryson

An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy. — John B. S. Haldane

I have tried to show why I believe that the biologist is the most romantic figure on earth at the present day. At first sight he seems to be just a poor little scrubby underpaid man, groping blindly amid the mazes of the ultra-microscopic, engaging in bitter and lifelong quarrels over the nephridia of flatworms, waking perhaps one morning to find that someone whose name he has never heard has demolished by a few crucial experiments the work which he had hoped would render him immortal. — John B. S. Haldane

While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced. — John B. S. Haldane

The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides. — John B. S. Haldane

As J. B. S. Haldane said when asked what evidence might contradict evolution, 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian. — Richard Dawkins

Science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be; that no beliefs, no values, no institutions are safe. — John B. S. Haldane

The advance of scientific knowledge does not seem to make either our universe or our inner life in it any less mysterious. — John B. S. Haldane

A discussion between Haldane and a friend began to take a predictable turn. The friend said with a sigh, 'It's no use going on. I know what you will say next, and I know what you will do next.' The distinguished scientist promptly sat down on the floor, turned two back somersaults, and returned to his seat. 'There,' he said with a smile. 'That's to prove that you're not always right.' — John B. S. Haldane

The aeroplane will never fly. — Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane

Quantitative work shows clearly that natural selection is a reality, and that, among other things, it selects Mendelian genes, which are known to be distributed at random through wild populations, and to follow the laws of chance in their distribution to offspring. In other words, they are an agency producing variation of the kind which Darwin postulated as the raw material on which selection acts. — John B. S. Haldane

I do not believe in the commercial possibility of induced radioactivity. — John B. S. Haldane

Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. "What inference," asked the latter, "might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?" Haldane replied: "An inordinate fondness for beetles." — John B. S. Haldane

The foundations of population genetics were laid chiefly by mathematical deduction from basic premises contained in the works of Mendel and Morgan and their followers. Haldane, Wright, and Fisher are the pioneers of population genetics whose main research equipment was paper and ink rather than microscopes, experimental fields, Drosophila bottles, or mouse cages. Theirs is theoretical biology at its best, and it has provided a guiding light for rigorous quantitative experimentation and observation. — Theodosius Dobzhansky

If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation it would appear that God has a special fondness for stars and beetles. — John B. S. Haldane

So many new ideas are at first strange and horrible though ultimately valuable that a very heavy responsibility rests upon those who would prevent their dissemination. — John B. S. Haldane

It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. — John B. S. Haldane

The conclusion forced upon me in the course of a life devoted to natural science is that the universe as it is assumed to be in physical science is only an idealized world, while the real universe is the spiritual universe in which spiritual values count for everything. — John B. S. Haldane