Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
1 2 3 4 5 6 ▲ ▼
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
f09903e The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgeable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might-hope against hope-have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by hundreds of thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other field of knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to dramatic, even 'revolutionary' shifts in the Darwinian theory, but the hope that it will be 'refuted' by some shattering breakthrough is about as reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard Copernicus. evolution science evolutionary-biology dennett scientific-theory evidence darwinism Daniel C. Dennett
78132cc What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now. When people die they are sometimes put into coffins which means that they don't mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots. But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burnt and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antartic, or coming down as rain in rainforests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere. nature death science life bodies cremation rot burial molecules decomposition decay energy funeral Mark Haddon
af80e0a Despite the Great Chain of Being's traditional ranking of humans between animals and angels, there is no evolutionary justification for the common assumption that evolution is somehow 'aimed' at humans, or that humans are 'evolution's last word'. science Richard Dawkins
31b07c8 Prediction in a complex world is a chancy business. Every decision that a survival machine takes is a gamble, and it is the business of genes to program brains in advance so that on average they take decisions that pay off. The currency used in the casino of evolution is survival, strictly gene survival, but for many purposes individual survival is a reasonable approximation. science Richard Dawkins
48b0878 "Much later, when I discussed the problem with problem science blunder cosmological-constant einstein greek physics George Gamow
7895879 Then they wondered if there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be huge, those of Mars middle-sized, those of Venus very small. Unless it is the same everywhere. There are businessmen, police up there; people trade, fight, dethrone their kings. Some shooting stars suddenly slid past, describing a course in the sky like the parabola of a monstrous rocket. 'My Word,' said Bouvard, 'look at those worlds disappearing.' Pecuchet replied: 'If our world in its turn danced about, the citizens of the stars would be no more impressed than we are now. Ideas like that are rather humbling.' 'What is the point of it all?' 'Perhaps there isn't a point.' 'Yet...' and Pecuchet repeated the word two or three times, without finding anything more to say. earth science life outer-space Gustave Flaubert
9bd1a3f Evolution has taught them that pointless harm will ultimately harm themselves. science pointless-harm self-harm Carl Zimmer
f80a855 Have you ever plunged into the immensity of space and time by reading the geological treatises of Cuvier? Borne away on the wings of his genius, have you hovered over the illimitable abyss of the past as if a magician's hand were holding you aloft? As one penetrates from seam to seam, from stratum to stratum and discovers, under the quarries of Montmartre or in the schists of the Urals, those animals whose fossilized remains belong to antediluvian civilizations, the mind is startled to catch a vista of the milliards of years and the millions of peoples which the feeble memory of man and an indestructible divine tradition have forgotten and whose ashes heaped on the surface of our globe, form the two feet of earth which furnish us with bread and flowers. Is not Cuvier the greatest poet of our century? Certainly Lord Byron has expressed in words some aspects of spiritual turmoil; but our immortal natural historian has reconstructed worlds from bleached bones. time mind discovery poetry science fossils cuvier discoverer feeble george-byron george-gordon-byron george-gordon-noel george-gordon-noel-byron georges-cuvier historian montmartre treatise urals lord-byron immensity civilization geology space genius natural turmoil poet memory Honoré de Balzac
76f7db1 US government button specifications run to twenty-two pages. This fact on its own yields a sense of what it is like to design garments for the Army. humour science mary-roach military Mary Roach
1c98571 La voluntad, el deseo de vivir, es tan fuerte en el animal como en el hombre. En el hombre es mayor la comprension. A mas comprender, corresponde menos desear. Esto es logico, y ademas se comprueba en la realidad. La apetencia por conocer se despierta en los individuos que aparecen al final de una evolucion, cuando el instinto de vivir languidece. El hombre, cuya necesidad es conocer, es como la mariposa que rompe la crisalida para morir. El individuo sano, vivo, fuerte, no ve las cosas como son, porque no le conviene. Esta dentro de una alucinacion. Don Quijote, a quien Cervantes quiso dar un sentido negativo, es un simbolo de la afirmacion de la vida. Don Quijote vive mas que todas las personas cuerdas que le rodean, vive mas y con mas intensidad que los otros. El individuo o el pueblo que quiere vivir se envuelve en nubes como los antiguos dioses cuando se aparecian a los mortales. El instinto vital necesita de las ficcion para afirmarse. La ciencia entonces, el instinto de critica, el instinto de averiguacion, debe encontrar una verdad: la cantidad de mentira que se necesita para la vida science existentialism don-quijote pesimism Pío Baroja
5aa9c94 Without science, there would be no such hope. science Kay Redfield Jamison
1279e8f In fact a favourite problem of is--Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily. shakespeare problem future science faust favorite forces johann-wolfgang-von-goethe john-tyndall physics tyndall hamlet goethe william-shakespeare Thomas Henry Huxley
0b0d6f8 Much depends on asking the right question at the right time. history discovery science innovation Arthur Koestler
0243343 We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth. science truth Ayn Rand
8f928c1 In 's ... it was in that novel that, for the first time, I learned Neptune had a satellite named Triton... It was from that I first learned there was a Mato Grosso area in the Amazon basin. It was from and other stories by that I first heard of relativity. The pleasure of reading about such things in the dramatic and fascinating form of science fiction gave me a push toward science that was irresistible. It was science fiction that made me want to be a scientist strongly enough to eventually make me one. That is not to say that science fiction stories can be completely trusted as a source of specific knowledge... However, the misguidings of science fiction can be unlearned. Sometimes the unlearning process is not easy, but it is a low price to pay for the gift of fascination over science. science golden-age-science-fiction golden-age-sf pulp-fiction science-fiction Isaac Asimov
582e59a What, after all, is so special about genes? The answer is that they are replicators. The laws of physics are supposed to be true all over the accessible universe. Are there any principles of biology which are likely to have similar universal validity? When astronauts voyage to distant planets and look for life, they can expect to find creatures too strange and unearthly for us to imagine. But is there anything which must be true of all life, wherever it is found, and whatever the basis of its chemistry? If forms of life exist whose chemistry is based on silicon rather than carbon, or ammonia rather than water, if creatures are discovered which boil to death at -100 degrees centigrade, if a form of life is found which is not based on chemistry at all, but on electronic reverberating circuits, will there still be any general principle which is true of all life? Obviously I do not know but, if I had to bet, I would put my money on one fundamental principle. This is the law that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which prevails on our own planet. There may be others. If there are, provided certain conditions are met, they will almost inevitably tend to become the basis for an evolutionary process. evolution science life Richard Dawkins
60b729b "I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
015e77d The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself. science cosmos space Neil deGrasse Tyson
7592688 THE QUESTION IS, OF COURSE, IS IT GOING TO BE POSSIBLE TO AMALGAMATE EVERYTHING, AND MERELY DISCOVER THAT THIS WORLD REPRESENTS DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ONE THING? science physics Richard P. Feynman
6b44ec5 If someone were to propose that the planets go around the sun because all planet matter has a kind of tendency for movement, a kind of motility, let us call it an 'oomph,' this theory could explain a number of other phenomena as well. So this is a good theory, is it not? No. It is nowhere near as good as the proposition that the planets move around the sun under the influence of a central force which varies exactly inversely as the square of the distance from the center. The second theory is better because it is so specific; it is so obviously unlikely to be the result of chance. It is so definite that the barest error in the movement can show that it is wrong; but the planets could wobble all over the place, and, according to the first theory, you could say, 'Well, that is the funny behavior of the 'oomph. theory imagination science explainability rigor scrutiny rationalization pseudoscience Richard P. Feynman
5bded49 A deep understanding of Darwinism teaches us to be wary of the easy assumption that design is the only alternative to chance science Richard Dawkins
1d79afa Constrained optimization is the art of compromise between conflicting objectives. This is what design is all about. To find fault with biological design - as Stephen Jay Gould regularly does - because it misses some idealized optimum is therefore gratuitous. Not knowing the objectives of the designer, Gould is in no position to say whether the designer has proposed a faulty compromise among those objectives. perfection science optimisation stephen-jay-gould biology optimization id intelligent-design William A. Dembski
fb61cc2 The options available to a creative person are ever limited by the choices offered by a philosopher. science philosophy interesting Neil deGrasse Tyson
934eaf4 It was not the first time that conscience has turned against the methods of research. science H.G. Wells
883116b The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. A good-natured smile is forever on its lips...I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at a sloth in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of scientific probing. science Yann Martel
d9c2862 Why are we here?' 'To make more love.' 'All right, fair enough. But how do we best love this world Allah gave us? We do it by learning it! [...] If you try to understand things, if you look at the world and say, why does this happen, why do things fall, why does the sun come up every morning and shine on us, and warm the air and fill the leaves with green--how does all this happen? What rules has Allah used to make this beautiful world?--Then it is all transformed. God sees that you appreciate it. And even if He doesn't, even if you never know anything in the end, even if it's impossible to know, you can still try. [...] This is God's real work. understanding science knowledge Kim Stanley Robinson
3bd0efd Many investigators feel uneasy stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they admit they are baffled. evolution science chemical-evolution origin-of-information origin-of-life biology id intelligent-design darwinism Paul Davies
292e65a Knowledge and wonder are the dyad of our worthy lives as intellectual beings. science Stephen Jay Gould
be1fa22 In a designed economy there would be no trees, or certainly no very tall trees: no forests, no canopy. Trees are a waste. Trees are extravagant. Tree trunks are standing monuments to futile competition - futile if we think in terms of a planed economy. But the natural economy is not planned. Individual plants compete with other plants, of the same and other species, and the result is that they grow taller and taller, far taller than any planner would recommend. science trees Richard Dawkins
171d740 The entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them, and excreting formulas for survival. You can't have one without the other. No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: No possible solutions. fiction imagination science science-fiction Ray Bradbury
5bd1a91 Where there has been true science, art has always been its exponent. science Leo Tolstoy
86539fc The planet is finished with us, at this point - science truth planet Zadie Smith
509dcbb "This is a world where things move at their own pace, including a tiny lift Fortey and I shared with a scholarly looking elderly man with whom Fortey chatted genially and familiarly as we proceeded upwards at about the rate that sediments are laid down. When the man departed, Fortey said to me: "That was a very nice chap named Norman who's spent forty-two years studying one species of plant, St. John's wort. He retired in 1989, but he still comes in every week." "How do you spend forty-two years on one species of plant?" I asked. "It's remarkable, isn't it?" Fortey agreed. He thought for a moment. "He's very thorough apparently." The lift door opened to reveal a bricked over opening. Fortey looked confounded. "That's very strange," he said. "That used to be Botany back there." He punched a button for another floor, and we found our way at length to Botany by means of back staircases and discreet trespass through yet more departments where investigators toiled lovingly over once-living objects." science research Bill Bryson
157ca09 "Meteorites don't fall on the Earth. They fall on the Sun and the Earth gets in the way." - John W. Campbell" science science-fiction Arthur C. Clarke
b94eeaf There's no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change. science scientific Madeleine L'Engle
b774559 CURIOSITY DEMANDS THAT WE ASK QUESTIONS, THAT WE TRY TO PUT THINGS TOGETHER AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS MULTITUDE OF ASPECTS AS PERHAPS RESULTING FROM THE ACTION OF A RELATIVELY SMALL NUMBER OF ELEMENTAL THINGS AND FORCES ACTING IN AN INFINITE VARIETY OF COMBINATIONS science particles physics Richard P. Feynman
a629d33 Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science. sympathy comfort science E.M. Forster
25a52f7 I believe, therefore, that although it is not the case today, that there may some day come a time, I should hope, when it will fully appreciated that the power of governments should be limited; that governments ought not to be empowered to decide the validity of scientific theories, that this is a ridiculous thing for them to try to do; that they are not to decide the description of history or of economic theory or of philosophy. science Richard P. Feynman
99e1717 "Electrons, when they were first discovered, behaved exactly like particles or bullets, very simply. Further research showed, from electron diffraction experiments for example, that they behaved like waves. As time went on there was a growing confusion about how these things really behaved ---- waves or particles, particles or waves? Everything looked like both. This growing confusion was resolved in 1925 or 1926 with the advent of the correct equations for quantum mechanics. Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have seen before. Your experience with things that you have seen before is incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different. An atom does not behave like a weight hanging on a spring and oscillating. Nor does it behave like a miniature representation of the solar system with little planets going around in orbits. Nor does it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have seen before. There is one simplication at least. Electrons behave in this respect in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly in the same way.... The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar; I will simply describe it. There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. So do not take the lecture too seriously, feeling that you really have to understand in terms of some model what I am going to describe, but just relax and enjoy it. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that." science philosophy quantum-mechanics physics Richard P. Feynman
edee6a0 At best he read popular science magazines like the Scientific American he had now, to keep himself up-to-date, in layman's terms, with physics generally. But even then his concentration was marred, for a lifetime's habit made him inconveniently watchful for his own name. He saw it as if in bold. It could leap out at him from an unread double page of small print, and sometimes he could sense it coming before the page turn. science humor ian-mcewan physics Ian McEwan
09c4564 Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive. science dogma mistake George Eliot
6904e8e The belief that the world was created yesterday seems to hold great appeal to those born at that time. stupidity religion science religious-fundamentalism creationism Gary Malone
596d3e9 That natural selection can produce changes within a type is disputed by no one, not even the staunchest creationist. But that it can transform one species into another -- that, in fact, has never been observed. evolution science darwinism darwin natural-selection neo-darwinism speciation Robert J. Sawyer
6ab1891 Is it possible, I wonder, to study a bird so closely, to observe and catalogue its peculiarities in such minute detail, that it becomes invisible? Is it possible that while fastidiously calibrating the span of its wings or the length of its tarsus, we somehow lose sight of its poetry? That in our pedestrian descriptions of a marbled or vermiculated plumage we forfeit a glimpse of living canvases, cascades of carefully toned browns and golds that would shame Kandinsky, misty explosions of color to rival Monet? I believe that we do. I believe that in approaching our subject with the sensibilities of statisticians and dissectionists, we distance ourselves increasingly from the marvelous and spell binding planet of imagination whose gravity drew us to our studies in the first place. That is not to say that we should cease to establish facts and verify our information, but merely to suggest that unless those facts can be imbued with the flash of poetic insight then they remain dull gems; semi-precious stones scarcely worth the collecting. science inspirational Alan Moore
d1fc2a2 I had learned that a dexterous, opposable thumb stood among the hallmarks of human success. We had maintained, even exaggerated, this important flexibility of our primate forebears, while most mammals had sacrificed it in specializing their digits. Carnivores run, stab, and scratch. My cat may manipulate me psychologically, but he'll never type or play the piano. evolution science panda thumb cat Stephen Jay Gould
9d9fb9a "If patterns of ones and zeroes were "like" patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long strings of ones and zeroes, then what kind of creature could be represented by a long string of lives and deaths?" science computers science-fiction Thomas Pynchon
d340e03 Physicists often quote from T. H. White's epic novel , where a society of ants declares, 'Everything not forbidden is compulsory.' In other words, if there isn't a basic principle of physics forbidding time travel, then time travel is necessarily a physical possibility. (The reason for this is the uncertainty principle. Unless something is forbidden, quantum effects and fluctuations will eventually make it possible if we wait long enough. Thus, unless there is a law forbidding it, it will eventually occur.) science heisenberg-uncertainty-principle terence-hanbury-white uncertainty-principle werner-heisenberg t-h-white the-once-and-future-king time-travel physics Michio Kaku
b085eea I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard--explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species. universe science cosmos space Neil deGrasse Tyson
d513393 Given cognitive vulnerabilities, it would be convenient to have an arrangement whereby reality could tell us off; and that is precisely what science is. Scientific methodology is the arrangement that allows reality to answer us back. science Rebecca Goldstein
7ac5a76 A million years is a short time - the shortest worth messing with for most problems. You begin tuning your mind to a time scale that is the planet's time scale. For me, it is almost unconscious now and is a kind of companionship with the earth. earth science deep-time geoscience geology John McPhee
6760d96 It is interesting to wonder whether taxonomists of the future may regret the way our generation messed around with genomes. science Richard Dawkins
3e48ec1 Science has eliminated distance. hispanic-literature nobel-prize-awardee science latin-america Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
6478149 A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I'll not go northing this year. I'll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow's fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow's seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
2d130fe "With the rise of classical Greece, the soul debate evolved into the more familiar heart-versus-brain, the liver having been demoted to an accessory role. We are fortunate that this is so, for we would otherwise have been faced with Celine Dion singing "My Liver Belongs to You" and movie houses playing The Liver Is a Lonely Hunter. Every Spanish love song that contains the word corazon, which is all of them, would contain the somewhat less lilting higado, and bumper stickers would proclaim, "I [liver symbol] my Pekingese." science humor liver soul Mary Roach
8f24e5f "Convincing - and confident - disciplines, say, physics, tend to use little statistical backup, while political science and economics, which have never produced anything of note, are full of elaborate statistics and statistical "evidence" (and you know that once you remove the smoke, the evidence is not evidence)." science statistics Nassim Nicholas Taleb
62c5e3f The world of the everyday suddenly seemed nothing but an inverted magic act, lulling its audience into believing in the usual, familiar conceptions of space and time, while the astonishing truth of quantum reality lay carefully guarded by nature's sleights of hand. science Brian Greene
eee92cb Is it not time to cry that the blind shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? But that which fanaticism formerly promised to its elect, science now accomplishes for all men. science homais fanatics improvement fanaticism Gustave Flaubert
8431fba "The biggest machines, in those days, were already pushing the limits of what could be constructed on Arbre with reasonable amounts of money." "I hadn't known that," I said. "I always tend to assume there's an infinite amount of money out there." "There might as well be," Arsibalt said, "but most of it gets spent on pornography, sugar water, and bombs. There is only so much that can be scraped together for particle accelerators." science particle-accelerators Neal Stephenson
dd71f04 Not that there's anything wrong with just lying around on your back. In it's way, rotting is interesting too, as we will see. It's just that there are other ways to spend your time as a cadaver. science Mary Roach
0cbaa7a With the growth of civilisation in Europe, and with the revival of letters and of science in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ethical and intellectual criticism of theology once more recommenced, and arrived at a temporary resting-place in the confessions of the various reformed Protestant sects in the sixteenth century; almost all of which, as soon as they were strong enough, began to persecute those who carried criticism beyond their own limit. But the movement was not arrested by these ecclesiastical barriers, as their constructors fondly imagined it would be; it was continued, tacitly or openly, by , by , by , and especially by , in the seventeenth century; by the English Freethinkers, by , by the , and by the German Rationalists, among whom stands out a head and shoulders taller than the rest, throughout the eighteenth century; by the historians, the philologers, the Biblical critics, the geologists, and the biologists in the nineteenth century, until it is obvious to all who can see that the moral sense and the really scientific method of seeking for truth are once more predominating over false science. Once more ethics and theology are parting company. criticism science baruch-spinoza d-holbach denis-diderot diderot gotthold-ephraim-lessing gotthold-lessing jean-jacque-rousseau jean-meslier lessing meslier paul-henri-d-holbach thomas-hobbes hobbes rousseau protestant spinoza science-vs-religion civilization geologists europe science-and-religion persecution descartes galileo galileo-galilei rene-descartes Thomas Henry Huxley
839fea8 "They had been talking about astrology, a forbidden science that was not pursued in the cloister. Narcissus had said that astrology was an attempt to arrange and order the many different types of human beings according to their natures and destinies. At this point Goldmund had objected: "You're forever talking of differences - I've finally recognised a pet theory of yours. When you speak of the great difference that is supposed to exist between you and me, for instance, it seems to me that this difference is nothing but your strange determination to establish differences." Narcissus: "Yes. You've hit the nail on the head. That's it: to you, differences are quite unimportant; to me, they are what matters most. I am a scholar by nature; science is my vocation. And science is, to quote your words, nothing but the 'determination to establish differences.' Its essence couldn't be defined more accurately. For us, the men of science, nothing is as important as the establishment of differences; science is the art of differentiation. Discovering in every man that which distinguishes him from others is to know him." individuality science difference Hermann Hesse
8f5e92a Imagine that the genome is a book. There are twenty-three chapters, called CHROMOSOMES. Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called GENES. Each story is made up of paragraphs, called EXTONS, which are interrupted by advertisements called INTRONS. Each paragraph is made up of words, called CODONS. Each word is written in letters called BASES. literature science literaturegy science-and-literature genetics Matt Ridley
3ead683 Originally, the atoms of carbon from which we're made were floating in the air, part of a carbon dioxide molecule. The only way to recruit these carbon atoms for the molecules necessary to support life--the carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, and lipids--is by means of photosynthesis. Using sunlight as a catalyst the green cells of plants combine carbon atoms taken from the air with water and elements drawn from the soil to form the simple organic compounds that stand at the base of every food chain. It is more than a figure of speech to say that plants create life out of thin air. science carbon corn plants photosynthesis biology food Michael Pollan
8e8ed8f And yet does the appetite for new days ever really cease? identity science philosophy life-philosophy John Updike
27463b5 Tom's theory of why human beings had yet to receive any message from extraterrestrial intelligences was that all civilizations, without exception, blew themselves up almost as soon as they were able to get a message out, never lasting more than a few decades in a galaxy whose age was billions; blinking in and out of existence so fast that, even if the galaxy abounded with earthlike planets, the chances of one civilization sticking around to get a message from another were vanishingly low, because it was too damned easy to split the atom. war science life spiritual-insights life-lesson Jonathan Franzen
042d70f The science of a religious man must be scientific; the religion of a scientific man must be religious. science Fulton J. Sheen
895117c ...For active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science. science love Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8799877 Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me. You, for instance, want to cure men of their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and good sense. But how do you know, not only that it is possible, but also that it is desirable to reform man in that way? And what leads you to the conclusion that man's inclinations need reforming? In short, how do you know that such a reformation will be a benefit to man? science reform Fyodor Dostoyevsky
82dd3e6 The simplest strategy for bouts of noxious flatus is to not care. Or perhaps to take advantage of a gastroenterologist I know: get a dog. (To blame.) science humor flatulence Mary Roach
d8a5d67 When we look at a solid lump of iron or rock, we are 'really' looking at what is almost entirely empty space. It looks and feels solid and opaque because our sensory systems and brains find it convenient to treat it as solid and opaque. It is convenient for the brain to represent a rock as solid because we can't walk through it. 'Solid' is our way of experiencing things that we can't walk through or fall throug, because of the electromagnetic forces between atoms. 'Opaque' is the experience we have when light bounces off the surface of an object, and none of it goes through. science brain Richard Dawkins
e8cf66d What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue. science whale space Annie Dillard
6680ea7 O progresso da ciencia, tal como uma antiga trilha no deserto, esta juncado pelos descolorados esqueletos de teorias rejeitadas, que um dia pareceram ter vida eterna. science philosophy-of-science Arthur Koestler
bb62e46 Logic is the science of the justification of conclusions we have reached by natural reasoning. My point is that, for such natural reasoning to occur, consciousness is not necessary. The very reason we need logic at all is because most reasoning is not conscious at all. science metaconsciousness definition reasoning consciousness logic Julian Jaynes
a712ad8 There's no data to suggest that I can make you love me whatever I do. science love Karen Joy Fowler
0569e27 Protein, so far as we know, does not replicate itself all by itself, not on this planet anyway. Looked at this way, the [prion] seems the strangest thing in all biology, and, until someone in some laboratory figures out what it is, a candidate for Modern Wonder. (quote originally by Lewis Thomas) science D. T. Max
d3a2d91 "[Chemist Michael] Polanyi found one other necessary requirement for full initiation into science: Belief. If science has become the orthodoxy of the West, individuals are nevertheless still free to take it or leave it, in whole or in part; believers in astrology, Marxism and virgin birth abound. But "no one can become a scientist unless he presumes that the scientific doctrine and method are fundamentally sound and that their ultimate premises can be unquestionably accepted." theory science the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb Richard Rhodes
04a490b The landed classes neglected technical education, taking refuge in classical studies; as late as 1930, for example, long after Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge had discovered the atomic nucleus and begun transmuting elements, the physics laboratory at Oxford had not been wired for electricity. Intellectual neglect technical education to this day. [Describing C.P. Snow's observations on the neglect of technical education.] science education baron-c-p-snow baron-snow c-p-snow charles-percy-snow ernest-rutherford nucleus rutherford oxford cambridge study physics Richard Rhodes
d8858ce "During World War II, when combat rations were tinned, meat hashes were a common entree because they worked well with the filling machines. "But the men wanted something they could chew, something into which they could 'sink their teeth,'" wrote food scientist Samuel Lepkovsky in a 1964 paper making the case against a liquid diet for the Gemini astronauts. He summed up the soldiers' take on potted meat: "We could undoubtedly survive on these rations a lot longer than we'd care to live." (NASA went ahead and tested an all-milkshake meal plan on groups of college students living in a simulated space capsule at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1964. A significant portion of it ended up beneath the floorboards.)" science humor Mary Roach
3ccc32e "However, as I hope to persuade you, there are some interesting connections between science and magic. They share a belief, as one mathematician put it, that what is visible is merely a superficial reality, not the underlying "real reality." They both have origins in a basic urge to make sense of a hostile world so that we may predict or manipulate it to our own ends." -- science math Roger Highfield
5a5bdd0 The human digestive tract is like the Amtrak line from Seattle to Los Angeles: transit time is about thirty hours, and the scenery on the last leg is pretty monotonous. science humor Mary Roach
fcf614f If you can't test it, it's not theorics -- it's metatheorics. A branch of philosophy. So, if you want to think of it this way, our test equipment is what defines the boundary separating theorics from philosophy. religion science philosophy Neal Stephenson
2e6330b As the physicist Paul Davies puts it, 'If everything needs everything else, how did the communities of molecules ever arise in the first place?' It is rather as if all the ingredients in your kitchen somehow got together and baked themselves into a cake - but a cake that could moreover divide when necessary to produce more cakes. It is little wonder that we call it the miracle of life. It is also little wonder that we have barely begun to understand it. science chemistry Bill Bryson
d985d4f Mandy loved the smell of a sunny day after a night of rain. The sun hit the orange puddles, the overgrown, soft, green grass on her lawn, and it beamed down through the orange steel mill smog, sending otherworldly, bizarre shadows across the concrete sidewalk. dream science smog nuclear rainbow pollution surreal girl storm teenager Rebecca McNutt
1fe1a3f As a rule, from what I've observed, the American captain of industry doesn't do anything out of business hours. When he has put the cat out and locked up the office for the night, he just relapses into a state of coma from which he emerges only to start being a captain of industry again. science P.G. Wodehouse
b9bf5a0 The problem with classical disembodied scientific realism is that it takes two intertwined and inseparable dimensions of all experience - the awareness of the experiencing organism and the stable entities and structures it encounters - and erects them as separate and distinct entities called subjects and objects. What disembodied realism ... misses is that, as embodied, imaginative creatures, we never were separated or divorced from reality in the first place. What has always made science possible is our embodiment, not our transcendence of it, and our imagination, not our avoidance of it. reason imagination science truth embodied-realism relativism George Lakoff
61a5d06 I suspect that scientists are driven by the sense that the world out there - reality - contains a hidden order, and the scientist is trying to elucidate the hidden order in our reality. And that impulse is what the scientist shares with the mystic. The impulse to get to the bottom of things. To know how the world really works. To know the nature of things. science mysticism Michael Crichton
422fdad This, in essence, is the problem with the scientific view of reality. Science is a kind of glorified tailoring enterprise, a method for taking measurements that describe something - reality - that may not be understood at all. science scientific-method Michael Crichton
c2d9230 I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting -- like cotton candy.' 'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA,' Smith said. 'Would it taste sweet?' 'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.' Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded away. science freaky genetics Timothy Ferris
e6afa0a The commercialization of molecular biology is the most stunning ethical event in the history of science, and it has happened with astonishing speed. For four hundred years since Galileo, science has always proceeded as a free and open inquiry into the workings of nature. Scientists have always ignored national boundaries, holding themselves above the transitory concerns of politics and even wars. Scientists have always rebelled against secrecy in research, and have even frowned on the idea of patenting their discoveries, seeing themselves as working to the benefit of all mankind. And for many generations, the discoveries of scientists did indeed have a peculiarly selfless quality... Suddenly it seemed as if everyone wanted to become rich. New companies were announced almost weekly, and scientists flocked to exploit genetic research... It is necessary to emphasize how significant this shift in attitude actually was. In the past, pure scientists took a snobbish view of business. They saw the pursuit of money as intellectually uninteresting, suited only to shopkeepers. And to do research for industry, even at the prestigious Bell or IBM labs, was only for those who couldn't get a university appointment. Thus the attitude of pure scientists was fundamentally critical toward the work of applied scientists, and to industry in general. Their long-standing antagonism kept university scientists free of contaminating industry ties, and whenever debate arose about technological matters, disinterested scientists were available to discuss the issues at the highest levels. But that is no longer true. There are very few molecular biologists and very few research institutions without commercial affiliations. The old days are gone. Genetic research continues, at a more furious pace than ever. But it is done in secret, and in haste, and for profit. copyrights paid-government science trademarks innovation politicians Michael Crichton
e601392 When you organize extraordinary missions, you attract people of extraordinary talent who might not have been inspired by or attracted to the goal of saving the world from cancer or hunger or pestilence. science ndt nasa space Neil deGrasse Tyson
e8a2690 What does it matter if two brains are isomorphic, or quasi-isomorphic, or not isomorphic at all? The answer is that we have an intuitive sense that, although other people differ from us in important ways, they are still 'the same' as we are in some deep and important ways. It would be instructive to be able to pinpoint what this invariant core of human intelligence is, and then to be able to describe the kinds of 'embellishments' which can be added to it, making each one of us a unique embodiment of this abstract and mysterious quality called 'intelligence. science Douglas R. Hofstadter
16bc00a They argued because they liked argument, liked the swift run of the unfettered mind along the paths of possibility, liked to question what was not questioned. science Ursula K. Le Guin
ae1ff60 Os livros de fisica podem ser complicados, mas eles, assim como os carros e os computadores, sao produtos de objetos biologicos - cerebros humanos. Os objetos e os fenomenos que um livro de fisica descreve sao mais simples que uma unica celula do corpo de seu autor. E o autor consiste em trilhoes de celulas, muitas delas diferentes umas das outras, organizadas com arquitetura intrincada e engenharia de precisao para formar uma maquina capaz de escrever um livro. science Richard Dawkins
215fef6 "The problem with ID, of course, is that it leaves open the possibility that the intelligence behind nature may have a moral interest in us, having communicated already with humanity in the past, and might try to boss you around in your private affairs. responsibility science aliens extraterrestrials moral-responsibility multiple-universe multiple-universes new-scientist dawkins multiverse richard-dawkins judgement id intelligent-design theism David Klinghoffer
436f054 ...this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion. history religion science statement similarity G.K. Chesterton
d22efad I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it it really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one. science philosophy G.K. Chesterton
ca9ab72 "Why should caring for others begin with the self? There is an abundance of rather vague ideas about this issue, which I am sure neuroscience will one day resolve. Let me offer my own "hand waving" explanation by saying that advanced empathy requires both mental mirroring and mental separation. The mirroring allows the sight of another person in a particular emotional state to induce a similar state in us. We literally feel their pain, loss, delight, disgust, etc., through so-called shared representations. Neuroimaging shows that our brains are similarly activated as those of people we identify with. This is an ancient mechanism: It is automatic, starts early in life, and probably characterizes all mammals. But we go beyond this, and this is where mental separation comes in. We parse our own state from the other's. Otherwise, we would be like the toddler who cries when she hears another cry but fails to distinguish her own distress from the other's. How could she care for the other if she can't even tell where her feelings are coming from? In the words of psychologist Daniel Goleman, "Self-absorption kills empathy." The child needs to disentangle herself from the other so as to pinpoint the actual source of her feelings." science Frans de Waal
7672857 So many of the properties of matter, especially when in the gaseous form, can be deduced from the hypothesis that their minute parts are in rapid motion, the velocity increasing with the temperature, that the precise nature of this motion becomes a subject of rational curiosity. , , , , , &c., have shewn that the relations between pressure, temperature and density in a perfect gas can be explained by supposing the particles move with uniform velocity in straight lines, striking against the sides of the containing vessel and thus producing pressure. (1860) science august-krönig bernoulli clausius daniel-bernoulli herapath james-joule james-prescott-joule john-herapath joule kronig rudolf-clausius rudolf-gottlieb rudolf-julius-emanuel-clausius matter temperature motion property curiosity physics James Clerk Maxwell
c35acae When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion--the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right. science humor arthur-charles-clarke clarke robotics scientists sci-fi Isaac Asimov
2bea513 ...nature as a whole was an exceptionally fine illustration of science. science Yann Martel
d0521f2 "Fascinating ... The whole thing [the school dance] seems to work on a similar principle to a supercollider. You know, two streams of opposingly charged particles accelerated till they're just under the speed of light, and then crashed into each other? Only here alcohol, accentuated secondary sexual characteristics and primitive "rock and roll" beats take the place of velocity." science Paul Murray
96467b4 "I think that the formation of [DNA's] structure by discovery science discovery-of-dna nobel-laureate watson-and-crick dna francis-crick james-watson genetics Linus Pauling
6e18b98 The Moon is slipping from our grasp at a rate of about 1.5 inches a year. In another two billion years it will have receded so far that it won't keep us steady and we will have to come up with some other solution, but in the meantime you should think of it as much more than just a pleasant feature in the night sky. science moon sky Bill Bryson
b9e3877 It does not, in the conventional phrase, accept the conclusions of science, for the simple reason that science has not concluded. To conclude is to shut up; and the man of science is not at all likely to shut up. science G.K. Chesterton
e2fc005 The living cell is the most complex system of its size known to mankind. Its host of specialized molecules, many found nowhere else but within living material, are themselves already enormously complex. They execute a dance of exquisite fidelity, orchestrated with breathtaking precision. Vastly more elaborate than the most complicated ballet, the dance of life encompasses countless molecular performers in synergetic coordination. Yet this is a dance with no sign of a choreographer. No intelligent supervisor, no mystic force, no conscious controlling agency swings the molecules into place at the right time, chooses the appropriate players, closes the links, uncouples the partners, moves them on. The dance of life is spontaneous, self-sustaining, and self-creating. evolution nature science life molecules complexity cells materialism naturalism Paul Davies
efadb14 You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in, in the hope that you might be lucky, and the knife has actually been staunching the blood. You want to know the conventional medical wisdom? The conventional medical wisdom is that you keep the knife in. Really. science life wisdom survival Nick Hornby (Author)
ff0c5c7 Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes.... reality science spacetime rocks geology Ursula K. Le Guin
432ada0 Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathized at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully. science irresponsibility horror H.G. Wells
d8feb9f Between 1980 and 2000 the number of patents registered in Israel was 7652 compared with 367 for all the Arab countries combined. In 2008 alone is really inventors applied to register 9591 new patents. The equivalent figure for Iran was 50 and for all majority Muslim countries in the world with 5657. science israel Niall Ferguson
ab93ed2 When we say that this definition of good and evil is objective, what we mean is that it is as objective as we can be at this time, and to the best of our knowledge about the universe. This definition is based on what we know about how the universe works. It is not based on the revealed wisdom of any one faith or political movement. It is common to the best principles of all of them, but it is based on what we know rather than what we believe. In that sense, it is objective. Of course, what we know about the universe, and our place in it, is constantly changing as we add more information and gain new insights. We are never perfectly objective about anything, that is true, but we can be less objective, or we can be more objective. science philosophy inspirational Gregory David Roberts
dbe7e85 Some people with Tourette's have flinging tics- sudden, seemingly motiveless urges or compulsions to throw objects..... (I see somewhat similar flinging behaviors- though not tics- in my two year old godson, now in a stage of primal antinomianism and anarchy) science tourette-s neurology Oliver Sacks
5b441e8 There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions, .... science fine-structure-constant mystery physics Roger Penrose
9b9528a We should not be too quick to dismiss our own [ocular] arrangement. As so often in biology, the situation is more complex.....we have the advantage that our own light-sensitive cells are embedded directly in their support cells (the retinal pigment epithelium) with an excellent blood supply immediately underneath. Such an arrangement supports the continuous turnover of photosensitive pigments. The human retina consumes even more oxygen than the brain, per gram, making it the most energetic organ in the body. evolution science nick lane
01700ac "Scientists have an expression for hypotheses that are utterly useless even for learning from mistakes. They refer to them as being "not even wrong." Most so-called spiritual discourse is of this type." spirituality religion science new-ge Christopher Hitchens
72707a2 Like Moliere's M. Jourdain, who spoke prose all his life without knowing it, mathematicians have been reasoning for at least two millennia without being aware of all the principles underlying what they were doing. The real nature of the tools of their craft has become evident only within recent times A renaissance of logical studies in modern times begins with the publication in 1847 of George Boole's 'The Mathematical Analysis of Logic'. nature science study george-boole jean-baptiste-poquelin m-jourdain molière reasoning logic math mathematics Ernest Nagel
fa87252 All this attempt to control... We are talking about Western attitudes that are five hundred years old... The basic idea of science - that there was a new way to look at reality, that it was objective, that it did not depend on your beliefs or your nationality, that it was rational - that idea was fresh and exciting back then. It offered promise and hope for the future, and it swept away the old medieval system, which was hundreds of years old. The medieval world of feudal politics and religious dogma and hateful superstitions fell before science. But, in truth, this was because the medieval world didn't really work any more. It didn't work economically, it didn't work intellectually, and it didn't fit the new world that was emerging... But now... science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting to not fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it can not tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways - air, and water, and land - because of ungovernable science... At the same time, the great intellectual justification of science has vanished. Ever since Newton and Descartes, science has explicitly offered us the vision of total control. Science has claimed the power to eventually control everything, through its understanding of natural laws. But in the twentieth century, that claim has been shattered beyond repair. First, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle set limits on what we could know about the subatomic world. Oh well, we say. None of us lives in a subatomic world. It doesn't make any practical difference as we go through our lives. Then Godel's theorem set similar limits to mathematics, the formal language of science. Mathematicians used to think that their language had some inherent trueness that derived from the laws of logic. Now we know what we call 'reason' is just an arbitrary game. It's not special, in the way we thought it was. And now chaos theory proves that unpredictability is built into our daily lives. It is as mundane as the rain storms we cannot predict. And so the grand vision of science, hundreds of years old - the dream of total control - has died, in our century. And with it much of the justification, the rationale for science to do what it does. And for us to listen to it. Science has always said that it may not know everything now but it will know, eventually. But now we see that isn't true. It is an idle boast. As foolish, and misguided, as the child who jumps off a building because he believes he can fly... We are witnessing the end of the scientific era. Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power. Because things are going very fast now... it will be in everyone's hands. It will be in kits for backyard gardeners. Experiments for schoolchildren. Cheap labs for terrorists and dictators. And that will force everyone to ask the same question - What should I do with my power? - which is the very question science says it cannot answer. higher-law science life innovation Michael Crichton
ac3d41f A third reason scientists are reluctant to examine paranormal phenomena is that they appear to contradict known physical laws. What is the point of studying the impossible? Only a fool would waste his time. The problem of data in conflict with existing theory cannot be overstated. Arthur Eddington once said you should never believe any experiment until it has been confirmed by theory, but this humorous view has a reality that cannot be discounted. theory science skepticism Michael Crichton
048994e It turns out to be the new Planet, which, a decade and a half later, will be known first as the Georgian, and then as Herschel, after its official Discoverer, and more lately as Uranus. history science Thomas Pynchon
abe0c21 "It isn't the sort of argument Pointsman relishes either. But he glances sharply at this young anarchist in his red scarf. "Pavlov believed that the ideal, the end we all struggle toward in science, is the true mechanical explanation. He was realistic enough not to expect it in his lifetime. Or in several lifetimes more. But his hope was for a long chain of better and better approximations. His faith ultimately lay in a pure physiological basis for the life of the psyche. No effect without cause, and a clear train of linkages. "It's not my forte, of course," Mexico honestly wishing not to offend the man, but really, "but there's a feeling about that cause-and-effect may have been taken as far as it will go. That for science to carry on at all, it must look for a less narrow, a less . . . sterile set of assumptions. The next great breakthrough may come when we have the courage to junk cause-and-effect entirely, and strike off at some other angle." "No - not 'strike off.' Regress. You're 30 years old, man. There are no 'other angles.' There is only forward - into it - or backward." science mechanism philosophy-of-science explanation Thomas Pynchon
ab7af9f "Meg, what I'm about to do - never, ever try this on your own." I felt a bit silly giving this advice to a girl who regulartly fought monsters with golden swords, but I had promised Bill Nye the Science Guy I would always promote safe laboratory practices." science Rick Riordan
1647003 Heisenberg and Bohr and Einstein strike me as being like gifted retriever dogs. Off they go, not just for an afternoon, but for ten years; they come back exhausted and triumphant and drop at your feet... a vole. It's a remarkable thing in its way, a vole--intricate, beautiful really, marvellous. But does it... Does it help? Does it move the matter on? When you ask a question that you'd actually like to know the answer to--what was there before the Big Bang, for instance, or what lies beyond the expanding universe, why does life have this inbuilt absurdity, this non sequitur of death--they say that your question can't be answered, because the terms in which you've put it are logically unsound. What you must do, you see, is ask vole questions. Vole is--as we have agreed--the answer; so it follows that your questions . voles meaning science questions Sebastian Faulks
9e14d99 Science destroys only the false ideas about religion; the true ideas it complements and explores.) religion science Susan Howatch
2e259a3 Any clock that can track this sideral schedule proves itself as perfect as God's magnificent clockwork. Dava Sobel time stars science earth-rotation Dava Sobel
99c278e "In despair, I offer your readers their choice of the following definitions of entropy. My authorities are such books and journals as I have by me at the moment. (a) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy of a system which cannot be converted into work by even a perfect heat engine.--Clausius. (b) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which can be converted into work by a perfect engine.--Maxwell, following Tait. (c) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which is not converted into work by our imperfect engines.--Swinburne. (d) Entropy (in a volume of gas) is that which remains constant when heat neither enters nor leaves the gas.--W. Robinson. (e) Entropy may be called the 'thermal weight', temperature being called the 'thermal height.'--Ibid. (f) Entropy is one of the factors of heat, temperature being the other.--Engineering. science peter-guthrie-tait peter-tait tait robinson maxwell james-clerk-maxwell james-maxwell rudolf-clausius rudolf-julius-emanuel-clausius entropy definition Sydney Herbert Evershed
c4875a1 I know that not all my readers like my digressions, but the research that has been done on Caenorhabditis elegans is such a ringing triumph of science that you aren't going to stop me. science Richard Dawkins
6ed1d42 Because they are so long-lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms--up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested--probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.) So we are all reincarnations--though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere--as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms, however, go on practically forever. science omnipresent universal Bill Bryson
cb12e81 "I published that theory [of speciational evolution] in a 1954 paper...and I clearly related it to paleontology. argued that the fossil record is very incomplete because some species fossilize better than others... I noted that you are never going to find evidence of a small local population that changed very rapidly in the fossil record... evolution science eldredge fossil-record gould niles-eldredge speciational-evolution stephen-jay-gould harvard charles-darwin evidence darwin Ernst Mayr
5d7c085 Science tries to record and explain the factual character of the natural world, whereas religion struggles with spiritual and ethical questions about the meaning and proper conduct of our lives. The facts of nature simply cannot dictate correct moral behavior or spiritual meaning. morality religion science ethics Stephen Jay Gould
25b3e22 We must have sinned greatly, at some juncture long buried in our protozoic past, to deserve such a universe identity science philosophy life-philosophy John Updike
1654399 Any account of science which does not explicitly describe it as something we believe in is essentially incomplete and a false pretense. It amounts to a claim that science is essentially different from and superior to all human beliefs that are not scientific statements--and this is untrue. science richard-rhodes the-making-of-the-atomic-bomb Richard Rhodes
218b583 Constipation ran Presley's life. Even his famous motto TCB-- 'Taking Care of Business'-- sounds like a reference to bathroom matters. science song humor Mary Roach
b9dc24b "People who are dependent are merely using alcohol as a crutch to get through the day. Yet doctors and scientists are still treating "alcoholism" as if it is the problem, when it has nothing to do with the problem. They might as well be studying "scratchism" for people who have a chronic itch." science holistic-treatment passages-ventura pax-prentiss passages-malibu chris-prentiss alcoholism alcoholism-addiction-recovery health Chris Prentiss
a3b6839 For many scientists, as Lyotard concedes, scientific knowledge is the only form of knowledge there is, but if so, how then do we understand fairy stories and law? science lyotard Peter Watson
d4fe732 But then, we have science, and with its help we shall discover Truth once more; then we shall accept it in full knowledge. Knowledge is of a higher order than feeling; awareness of life is of a higher order than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal to us the laws of nature, and knowledge of the laws of nature will confer upon us a happiness beyond happiness. nature science life Fyodor Dostoyevsky
b2085f0 Humanity cannot lift itself by its own bootstraps; there is no such thing as spontaneous generation; life does not come from crystals; poetry does not come from donkeys; international peace does not come from wars; social justice does not come from selfishness. With all our knowledge of chemistry we cannot make a human life in our laboratories because we lack the unifying, vivifying principal of a soul which comes only from God. Life is not a push from below; it is a gift from above. It is not the result of the necessary ascent of man but the loving descent of God. science god soul Fulton J. Sheen
46444c1 Arguably the greatest technological triumph of the century has been the public-health system, which is sophisticated preventive and investigative medicine organized around mostly low- and medium-tech equipment; ... fully half of us are alive today because of the improvements. science life triumph public-health medicine technology Richard Rhodes
3ce96b0 If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? [...] Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. science life love Yann Martel
58cbf31 A few words in defense of military scientists. I agree that squad leaders are in the best position to know what and how much their men and women need to bring on a given mission. But you want those squad leaders to be armed with knowledge, and not all knowledge comes from experience. Sometimes it comes from a pogue at USUHS who's been investigating the specific and potentially deadly consequences of a bodybuilding supplement. Or an army physiologist who puts men adrift in life rafts off the dock at a Florida air base and discovers that wetting your uniform cools you enough to conserve 74 percent more of your body fluids per hour. Or the Navy researcher who comes up with a way to speed the recovery time from travelers' diarrhea. These things matter when it's 115 degrees and you're trying to keep your troops from dehydrating to the point of collapse. There's no glory in the work. No one wins a medal. And maybe someone should. science Mary Roach
6b164b3 This gesture is one of the motifs of modernity's turn against the principle of imitating nature, that is to say, imitating predefined morphological expectations. It is still capable of perceiving message-totalities and autonomous thing-signals when no morphologically intact figures are left - indeed, precisely then. The sense for perfection withdraws from the forms of nature - probably because nature itself is in the process of losing its ontological authority. The popularization of photography also increasingly devalues the standard views of things. As the first edition of the visible, nature comes into discredit. It can no longer assert its authority as the sender of binding messages - for reasons that ultimately come from its disenchantment through being scientifically explored and technically outdone. After this shift, 'being perfect' takes on an altered meaning: it means having something to say that is more meaningful than the chatter of conventional totalities. Now the torsos and their ilk have their turn: the hour of those forms that do not remind us of anything has come. Fragments, cripples and hybrids formulate something that cannot be conveyed by the common whole forms and happy integrities; intensity beats standard perfection. photography perfection nature poetry science perfect cripples fragments hybrids intensity technique rilke thing-poem modernity Peter Sloterdijk
7879b53 I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching trees growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
9b573e9 "The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. "Last forever!" Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can't recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
f1f3c26 "In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there. I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, "When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy ring-the-bells enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
f96ea15 This 'web of discourses' as Robyn called it...is as much a biological product as any of the other constructions to be found in the animal world. (Clothes too, are part of the extended phenotype of Homo Sapiens almost every niche inhabited by that species.An illustrated encyclopedia of zoology should no more picture Homo Sapiens naked than it should picture Ursus arctus-the black bear- wearing a clown suit and riding a bicycle. science humor philosophy dennett philosophy-of-mind Daniel C. Dennett
f098d0c What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together progress stupidity science Julian Barnes
1 2 3 4 5 6 ▲ ▼