Mario Bunge

“Mario Bunge - page at the McGill University”

“At all times pseudoprofound aphorisms have been more popular than rigorous arguments.”

“In academia much bogus knowledge is tolerated in the name of academic freedom – which is like allowing for the sale of contaminated food in the name of free enterprise. I submit that such tolerance is suicidal: that the serious students must be protected against the “anything goes” crowd.”

“The fact that a great many scientists signed Faustian pacts with the war devil throughout the twentieth century has given science a bad name, and has discouraged many able youngsters from pursuing a scientific career.”

“Bunge: In September I will be 90 years old.Reporter: You look very youthful.Bunge: That's because I avoid alcohol, tobacco, and postmodernism.”

“If one aims to judge political movements, their deeds are far more important than their speeches, which are often masking rather than revealing.”

“We all would to know more and, at the same time, to receive less information. In fact, the problem of a worker in today's knowledge industry is not the scarcity of information but its excess. The same holds for professionals: just think of a physician or an executive, constantly bombarded by information that is at best irrelevant. In order to learn anything we need time. And to make time we must use information filters allowing us to ignore most of the information aimed at us. We must ignore much to learn a little.”

“A definitely undesirable rationale sustaining the cult of simplicity is of a metaphysical nature: namely, the wish to attain the ultimate atoms of experience and/or reality ... this drive, which feeds metaphysical fundamentalism, is dangerous because it leads to postulating the final simplicity of some form of experience or some kind of substance thereby barring any inquiry into their structure.”

“The motto of science is not just Pauca but rather Plurima ex paucissimis — the most out of the least.”