Quote Origin: The Philosophy of Science Is As Useful To Scientists As Ornithology Is To Birds

Richard Feynman? Steven Weinberg? Barnett Newman? John D. Barrow? Philip Kitcher? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The philosophy of science critically examines the foundations and methods of empiricism. Practitioners of science are sometimes indifferent or hostile to this analysis. Apparently, a scientist once presented the following derisive analogy:

The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.

In other words, a textbook on ornithology would be indecipherable to a bird just as a treatise on the philosophy of science would be irrelevant to a working scientist. This thought has been ascribed to U.S. theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, but I am skeptical because I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive support for the attribution to Richard Feynman. The quotation is not listed in the valuable 2015 compendium “The Quotable Feynman” from Princeton University Press.[1] 2015, The Quotable Feynman, Edited by Michelle Feynman, Quotation is absent; the word “ornithology” is absent, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified with scans)

The earliest close match known to QI appeared in the journal “Nature” in 1987 which printed a speech delivered by theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[2]1987 December 3, Nature, Newtonianism, reductionism and the art of congressional testimony by Steven Weinberg, Start Page 433, Macmillan, London. (Accessed Nature archive on March 27, 2023 via … Continue reading

I’ve heard the remark (although I forget the source) that the philosophy of science is just about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.

Steven Weinberg did not claim credit; instead, he presented an anonymous attribution. Interestingly, the remark is a member of a family of related sayings that began with an analogy credited to prominent U.S. painter Barnett Newman in the journal “Art in America” in 1955:[3] 1955 December, Art in America, Volume 43, Number 4, Gallery Notes by Dorothy Gees Seckler, Start Page 50, Quote Page 59, Column 1, Cannondale, Connecticut. (Verified with scans)

. . . aesthetics is for the artist like Ornithology is for the birds . . .

A separate Quote Investigator article about the saying immediately above is available here.

Additional details and citations for the science quotation under examination are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.

Image Notes: Humorous illustration of a bird reading a book. This illustration is in the public domain.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Peppe Liberti whose email message led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Liberti published an article about this family of sayings in “Il Tascabile”, the “Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Letters, and Arts”. Liberti noted that the quotation employed by Steven Weinberg in 1987 had been implausibly attributed to physicist Richard Feynman. Liberti identified several important citations. Also, he traced the family of sayings back to Barnett Newman and the Woodstock Art Conference in 1952.

References

References
1 2015, The Quotable Feynman, Edited by Michelle Feynman, Quotation is absent; the word “ornithology” is absent, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified with scans)
2 1987 December 3, Nature, Newtonianism, reductionism and the art of congressional testimony by Steven Weinberg, Start Page 433, Macmillan, London. (Accessed Nature archive on March 27, 2023 via nature.com)
3 1955 December, Art in America, Volume 43, Number 4, Gallery Notes by Dorothy Gees Seckler, Start Page 50, Quote Page 59, Column 1, Cannondale, Connecticut. (Verified with scans)