Beneficial Quotes (3)
A Los Angeles surgeon who smokes (but doesn't inhale), contends that 'For the majority of people, the use of tobacco has a beneficial effect, far better for you than taking tranquilizers.'
Quoted in Newsweek (18 Nov 1969), 62, Pt. 2, 66. A misguided comment, often seen as the shortened quote 'For the majority ... beneficial effect' in a list of regrettable remarks, without the fuller context of the quote given here. MacDonald was quoted in the article to be an example that physicians were not unanimous in their attitudes against smoking. The quote is a opinion expressed to the reporter; it was not the result of scholarly research.
It is curious how often erroneous theories have had a beneficial effect for particular branches of science.
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 847.
It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind it is? And how much is there of it? Quality and Quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry.
'Address to the Mathematical and Physical Sections of the British Association, Liverpool, 15 Sep 1870', The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890 edition, reprint 2003), Vol. 2, 217.
See also: | Discovery (166) | Enquiry (58) | Experiment (199) | Measurement (62) | Noxious (2) | Quality (5) | Quantity (6) | Question (45) | Understanding (94)
