Linus Pauling — "I am a scientist, and I believe in the scientific method. But I also believe tha…"
I am a scientist, and I believe in the scientific method. But I also believe that there are things that science cannot explain.
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More from Linus Pauling
"I have always been interested in the nature of things, and especially in the nature of life."
"I have always been a pacifist, and I believe that war is never the answer."
"I had something of a shock when I went to Europe in 1926 and discovered that there were a good number of people around that I thought to be smarter than me."
"I have always been a fighter, and I believe that it is important to stand up for what you believe in."
"Science is the search for truth -- it is not a game in which one tries to beat his opponent, to do harm to others."
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Being a scientist means trusting the scientific method as the best tool for understanding the natural world. But intellectual honesty demands acknowledging that science has boundaries — questions of consciousness, meaning, morality, or subjective experience may not yield to empirical testing. True rigor includes recognizing what your tools can and cannot measure. Science explains mechanisms; it may not explain everything that matters to human life.
Relevance to Linus Pauling
Pauling won two Nobel Prizes — Chemistry in 1954 for revolutionizing understanding of chemical bonds, and Peace in 1962 for opposing nuclear weapons testing. His anti-nuclear activism drew on science but was ultimately driven by moral conviction science alone couldn't supply. His controversial vitamin C advocacy also showed him pushing beyond consensus. He consistently acted as though some truths — about human life and dignity — exceeded what experiments could settle.
The era
Pauling's peak years coincided with the Cold War and the atomic age, when science was simultaneously celebrated as humanity's great hope and feared as its potential destroyer. The 1950s–60s saw the space race, DNA's discovery, and nuclear arsenals growing. Scientists faced intense pressure to serve state power or resist it. Questions about what science could — and couldn't — justify morally became urgent after physics had already produced Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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