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Who really said it

Any field that has the word science in its name is guaranteed thereby not to be a science

Not Richard Feynman — actually Frank Harary Frank Harary 1921–2005 · American mathematician · a founder of modern graph theory
Disputed In copyright

There is no evidence Feynman said this. Quote Investigator ↗ credits the remark to Frank Harary, the graph theorist, and the earliest documented appearance it located is in Gerald M. Weinberg’s textbook An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (John Wiley & Sons, 1975), chapter 1, pages 24–25, where Weinberg reports that “Frank Harary once suggested” the law. QI is careful to call its own chronology provisional and says the 1975 citation may yet be antedated.

Last verified 9 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Any field that has the word science in its name is guaranteed thereby not to be a science” Frank Harary, as reported by Gerald M. Weinberg in An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (1975), pp. 24–25. Not Richard Feynman — the earliest Feynman attribution dates to 2008. — Quotle.info · Verbatim: “any field that had the word “science” in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Richard Feynman. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by John Wiley & Sons (publisher of the 1975 Weinberg text in which the remark is documented)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Frank Harary — American mathematician · graph theory. Theme: "Any field that has the word science in its name is guaranteed thereby not to be a science". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Any field that has the word science in its name is guaranteed thereby not to be a science". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Popularly credited to
Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
Credited by Quote Investigator to
Frank Harary (1921–2005)
Earliest documented in
An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
Publication
Gerald M. Weinberg · John Wiley & Sons, 1975 · ch. 1, pp. 24–25

The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that any field that had the word “science” in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer Science.

Note the tense. Weinberg is reporting something Harary had said on an earlier occasion — “once suggested” — so even this 1975 passage does not record Harary’s own words directly. The crisp present-tense sentence in circulation is a later tidying of Weinberg’s reported version.

Quote Investigator: the full chronology

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s investigation ↗ concludes: “based on current evidence the mathematician Frank Harary can be credited with this quip.” It also states plainly that its data “is not presented as definitive” and that the 1975 citation may be antedated — we have not asserted more certainty than that.
  • The earliest printed link to Feynman that QI found is a 2008 conference panel remark, and it quotes a different sentence: “Any field which has to have ‘science’ in its name isn’t one.” Feynman died in 1988.
  • The line is absent from the sourced quotations on Feynman’s Wikiquote page ↗, and QI’s Feynman tag ↗ collects a long run of similar science-flavoured lines pinned on him.
  • Frank Harary’s dates and field are confirmed on his Wikipedia entry ↗; Gerald M. Weinberg and the 1975 book are confirmed on his ↗.
In copyright

The only documented wording sits inside Gerald M. Weinberg’s An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, published by John Wiley & Sons in 1975 and therefore in copyright in the United States. Harary’s original spoken remark is undated and was never separately published, so nothing here can be treated as public domain.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How Feynman’s name got attached

This is a joke with several fathers and no birth certificate. Feynman is simply the most famous name it has drifted onto.

Richard Feynman No evidence

Quote Investigator ↗ found no support for the attribution. Feynman died in 1988; the earliest printed linkage to him that QI located is from 2008.

A 2008 conference panel Twenty years after his death

QI’s earliest Feynman citation is a panel discussion printed in the Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges in May 2008, where a speaker paraphrases: “If Richard Feynman is correct that ‘Any field which has to have ‘science’ in its name isn’t one’…” — a hedged second-hand quotation, not a source.

Max Goldstein, and an unnamed friend Independent retellings

The computer scientist Paul W. Abrahams credited the line to Max Goldstein of NYU in a 2007 oral-history interview, and in 1979 Marshall C. Yovits ascribed a version to “a friend”. Both are recorded by QI ↗, and both suggest a saying that spread by word of mouth among scientists rather than from one printed origin.

Best current evidence points to Frank Harary, reported by Gerald M. Weinberg in 1975 — not to Richard Feynman. See Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why it stuck

The joke works because it is a testable-sounding claim about naming, and the examples do most of the arguing: Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Domestic Science. Weinberg presented it in 1975 not as a punchline but as an exercise — the seventh in a chapter of questions for further research — which is a rather good sign that he expected students to push back on it.

It attaches to Feynman for the same reason a hundred other sceptical one-liners do: he was a Nobel physicist with a public reputation for irreverence about pretension, and the line sounds exactly like something he would enjoy saying. Sounding right is not evidence.

The examples do most of the arguing. That is what makes it quotable, and what makes it hard to trace.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Knowledge Truth Doubt

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Any Field That Had the Word “Science” in Its Name…quoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative investigation: Harary via Weinberg 1975, plus the Yovits, Abrahams and 2008 Feynman citations.
Frank Hararyen.wikipedia.org

The mathematician QI credits: 1921–2005, a founder of modern graph theory.
Gerald Weinbergen.wikipedia.org

Author of the 1975 An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, the earliest documented source.
Richard Feynmanen.wikiquote.org

Feynman’s sourced quotations — this line is absent from them.
Richard Feynman (Quote Investigator tag)quoteinvestigator.com

QI’s collected investigations of quotations misattributed to Feynman.

The likely author

About Frank Harary

Frank Harary

1921–2005 · American mathematician · graph theory

Frank Harary (1921–2005) was an American mathematician and one of the people who turned graph theory into a modern discipline, publishing prolifically and collaborating with an unusually large number of co-authors. He spent much of his career at the University of Michigan. The quip attributed to him here fits a mathematician’s habit of mind: it is stated as a law, and then immediately supplied with the counter-examples that test it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Gerald M. Weinberg, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (1975)

Weinberg, Gerald M. An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975, ch. 1, pp. 24–25 (reporting the remark and attributing it to Frank Harary). Chronology: Garson O’Toole, “Quote Origin: Any Field That Had the Word ‘Science’ in Its Name Was Guaranteed Thereby Not To Be a Science,” Quote Investigator, 26 June 2015.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Any field that has the word science in its name is guaranteed thereby not to be a science’?” Last verified 9 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/any-field-that-has-the-word-science-in-its-name-is/

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