Science & Tech Quote by Hippocrates

A physician writing before the scientific method had a name is already drawing borders: not between people, but between ways of knowing. Hippocrates sets up a blunt binary - science versus opinion - then loads it with consequence. Knowledge is framed as something that can be begotten, a kind of intellectual offspring produced by disciplined practice. Opinion, by contrast, doesnt merely lack knowledge; it actively breeds ignorance. That moral asymmetry is the point. Hes not politely recommending evidence; hes warning that untested certainty is generative, contagious, and socially dangerous.

The line also works as professional self-defense. Early medicine competed with priests, folk healers, and charismatic guessers. By calling opinion a source of ignorance, Hippocrates is delegitimizing rivals who rely on authority, tradition, or vibes. Its an argument for medicine as craft: observation, pattern, cause, and prediction - not story.

The subtext feels startlingly modern because the target isnt merely misinformation; its epistemic overconfidence. Opinion is easy, fast, flattering. It offers identity and belonging. Science is slower and frequently humiliating, forcing you to revise yourself in public. Hippocrates is betting that a culture willing to tolerate that humiliation will get better at staying alive.

Read in context, its less a timeless proverb than a political claim about who gets to speak for reality. In a world where illness could be interpreted as fate or punishment, insisting on science is insisting on agency - and on accountability for being wrong.