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Physicists do not believe quantum mechanics because it explains the world, but because it predicts the outcome of experiments with almost miraculous accuracy. Theorists kept predicting new particles and other phenomena, and experiments kept bearing out those predictions.

— John Horgan The End of Science (1996)

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More quotes by John Horgan

One of the things that makes Gell-Mann so insufferable is that he is almost always right.

The End of Science (1996)

Newton's version of gravity violates common sense. How can one thing tug at another across vast spans of space? ...Newton's formalism nonetheless provided an astonishingly accurate means of calculating the orbits of planets; it was too effective to deny.

The End of Science (1996)

I begin to discern the paradox lurking at the heart of Karl Popper's career... Everyone says this opponent of dogmatism is almost pathologically dogmatic.

The Popper Paradox (2023)

Science has only existed for a few hundred years, and its most spectacular achievements have occurred within the last century. Viewed from a historical perspective, the modern era of rapid scientific and technological progress appears to be not a permanent feature of reality, but an abberation, a fluke, a product of a singular convergence of social, intellectual, and political factors.

The End of Science (1996)

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