Science Quote by John Charles Polanyi

Polanyi is smuggling a warning inside a compliment. Science, he grants, hands us an unusually sharp set of words: not just “gene” or “quark,” but ways of carving reality into causes, mechanisms, probabilities, and limits. That vocabulary doesn’t merely describe the world; it reorganizes what counts as a plausible thought. Once you can say “risk factor,” “side effect,” “arms race,” or “externality,” you can’t un-know the uncomfortable implications those terms carry.

The second clause is the barb: any language powerful enough to tell the truth is powerful enough to offend. Polanyi pushes back against the fantasy that we can build a sanitized discourse where knowledge only flatters, comforts, or serves consensus. People often demand that science “stay positive” or “be responsible,” but what they sometimes mean is: don’t give us words that force accountability. A vocabulary that can name carcinogens can also name culpability; a vocabulary that can model climate can also model blame.

Context matters: Polanyi isn’t a tech booster or a lab romantic. As a scientist who lived through the 20th century’s collision of research and catastrophe, he’s attuned to how discovery travels with power. “Impossible” here isn’t cynicism for its own sake; it’s an ethical claim about honesty. If we want the benefits of scientific clarity, we inherit its capacity to say hard things about our bodies, our economies, and our politics. The demand for “nice” language is, in Polanyi’s framing, a demand for intellectual disarmament.