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Later generations will regard set theory as a disease from which one has recovered.
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Ernst Hölder attributed this to Poincaré in 1924: "Poincaré at the Rome Congress (1908) went so far as to say …", but this is not an accurate summary of his remarks in "The Future of Mathematics". See Jeremy Gray, "Did Poincaré say ‘Set theory is a disease’?", The Mathematical Intelligencer, 13:19-22.
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Also, probably a variant translation of Hölder's comment, "Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover."

 

Henri Poincare

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Later generations will regard Mengenlehre as a disease from which one has recovered.

 

Henri Poincare

 

"Incidentally, psycho-analysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch-doctoring. It has a theory as to what causes disease - lots of different "spirits" etc. The witch doctor has a theory that a disease like malaria is caused by a spirit which comes into the air ; it is not cured by shaking a snake over it, but quinine does help malaria. So, if you are sick, I would advise that you go to the witch doctor because he is the man in the tribe who knows the most about the disease; on the other hand his knowledge is not science. Psychoanalysis has not been checked carefully by experiment... (page 63)

 

Richard Feynman

 

Now I, as the legislator, regard you and your possessions, not as belonging to yourselves, but as belonging to your whole family, both past and future, and yet more do I regard both family and possessions as belonging to the state; wherefore, if some one steals upon you with flattery, when you are tossed on the sea of disease or old age, and persuades you to dispose of your property in a way that is not for the best, I will not, if I can help, allow this...

 

Plato

 

There is one [disease] which is widespread, and from which men rarely escape. This disease varies in degree in different men ... I refer to this: that every person thinks his mind ... more clever and more learned than it is ... I have found that this disease has attacked many an intelligent person ... They ... express themselves [not only] upon the science with which they are familiar, but upon other sciences about which they know nothing ... If met with applause ... so does the disease itself become aggravated.

 

Maimonides

 

Most liberal-minded folk would like to think that since they are not hostile to people of a different race, racism is a disease of the uneducated, unenlightened and socially backward - football hooligans, British National Party supporters, policemen. You could call this the Bad Guy Theory. But the Bad Guy Theory does not explain why Indian-heritage children do nearly twice as well as Pakistani-heritage children at GCSE.

 

Trevor Phillips