Penguin Science Fiction

Famous quotes containing the words penguin, science and/or fiction:

    Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.
    Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)

    Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
    Jules Henri Poincare (1854–1912)

    We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our narratives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose, there is no instance. To write a true work of fiction even is only to take leisure and liberty to describe some things more exactly as they are.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)