Quote Investigator ↗ found “no substantive support” for the Feynman attribution, and notes the line does not appear in The Quotable Feynman (Princeton University Press, 2015) — the word “ornithology” is absent from that book entirely. The earliest close match QI located is a speech by the physicist Steven Weinberg printed in Nature on 3 December 1987, and Weinberg went out of his way not to claim it: “I’ve heard the remark (although I forget the source)…”
“The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds” Author unknown. Popularised by Steven Weinberg in Nature, 3 December 1987, who said he had forgotten the source; part of a family of sayings begun by painter Barnett Newman in 1955. Not Richard Feynman. — Quotle.info · Verbatim: “the philosophy of science is just about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Richard Feynman. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of knowledge, wisdom and doubt. Theme: "The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". 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 "The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". 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)
Actual status
Creator unknown — Quote Investigator’s conclusion
Earliest close match
Steven Weinberg, in Nature, 3 December 1987
Family originator
Barnett Newman, on aesthetics and artists, in Art in America, 1955
I’ve heard the remark (although I forget the source) that the philosophy of science is just about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
— Steven Weinberg, in a speech printed in Nature, 3 December 1987. The ancestor of the whole family, credited to the painter Barnett Newman in Art in America in 1955, runs: “aesthetics is for the artist like Ornithology is for the birds”.
Weinberg’s sentence is not quite the one in circulation — he says “just about as useful”, and John D. Barrow’s 1988 version says “about as useful”. The tightened wording people quote today matches neither exactly.
Quote Investigator’s investigation ↗ concludes: “the creator of this saying about the philosophy of science remains unknown.” It reports that the line is absent from The Quotable Feynman (2015), which QI verified against scans.
The earliest close match QI located is Steven Weinberg ↗’s speech printed in Nature on 3 December 1987, in which he attributes the remark to a source he says he has forgotten — an anonymous attribution, not a claim of authorship.
QI places the saying in a family begun by the painter Barnett Newman ↗ in Art in America in 1955, on aesthetics and artists; variants about art criticism and about biography were in print by 1986, before the philosophy-of-science version appeared.
The line also sits in the “Disputed and/or attributed” section of Feynman’s Wikiquote page ↗, not among his sourced quotations.
The saying has no identified author and no traceable first publication — the 1987 Nature appearance is a speaker repeating something he had heard and could not source. No copyright status can responsibly be asserted. The specific wording that circulates today does not match either of the documented 1987 or 1988 versions exactly.
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 one has a clear path: a real physicist repeated an anonymous remark, and over a decade the anonymity was filled in with the most famous available physicist.
✕
The exact wordingRichard Feynman No evidence
Quote Investigator ↗ found no substantive support, and the quotation is absent from The Quotable Feynman, the 2015 Princeton University Press compendium edited by his daughter Michelle Feynman.
✕
The earliest Feynman attributionPhilip Kitcher, 1998 Hedged at the time
The philosopher Philip Kitcher referred to “Richard Feynman’s famous (perhaps apocryphal) judgment” in his chapter “A Plea for Science Studies” in A House Built on Sand (Oxford University Press, 1998). This is the earliest printed Feynman linkage QI knows of — and Kitcher himself flagged it as possibly apocryphal, a caveat later quoters dropped.
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The popularizerSteven Weinberg Repeated it, disclaimed it
Weinberg’s 1987 Nature speech is what put the phrasing into circulation among scientists, but he prefaced it with “I’ve heard the remark (although I forget the source)”. He is the reason people know the line, not the reason it exists.
~
The family it belongs toBarnett Newman Ancestor of the saying, not its author
The painter Barnett Newman ↗ (1905–1970) is credited in Art in America in 1955 with “aesthetics is for the artist like Ornithology is for the birds”. Versions about art criticism and about biography were circulating by 1986; the philosophy-of-science variant is the youngest branch of the tree.
✓The creator is unknown. Feynman did criticise philosophers of science — but not in these words, and the analogy was not his to begin with. See Quote Investigator ↗.
Context
The awkward part
Feynman is not an absurd candidate, which is exactly why the attribution survived. He really was scathing about philosophers of science: Quote Investigator quotes a Caltech lecture from the early 1960s in which he calls their claims about what is “absolutely necessary for science” naive and probably wrong, and then dismantles one with an example about the aurora borealis.
So the sentiment is genuinely his. The sentence is not. That gap — right person, wrong words — is the hardest kind of misattribution to dislodge, because everyone who repeats it can point to something true.
The sentiment is genuinely his. The sentence is not.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1918–1988 · theoretical physicist · Nobel Prize 1965
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum electrodynamics, and was famously impatient with anything he judged to be talk about science rather than science. He did say sharp things about philosophers — which is what makes this particular misattribution so durable. The line expresses a view he held; it simply is not a sentence anyone can show he wrote or spoke.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Quote Investigator
Garson O’Toole, “Quote Origin: The Philosophy of Science Is As Useful To Scientists As Ornithology Is To Birds,” Quote Investigator, 9 April 2023. Earliest close match: Steven Weinberg, speech printed in Nature, 3 December 1987 (attributing the remark to a forgotten source). Family originator: Barnett Newman, in Art in America, December 1955. Earliest Feynman linkage: Philip Kitcher, “A Plea for Science Studies,” in A House Built on Sand (Oxford University Press, 1998).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds’?” Last verified 9 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-philosophy-of-science-is-as-useful-to-scientists-as/