Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.
When I was a graduate student in computer science in the early 2000s, computers were barely able to detect sharp edges in photographs, let alone recognize something as loosely defined as a human face.
Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom – that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.
Climate change is real. Climate change is being substantially increased by humans and the carbon we put into the atmosphere. And it appears to be speeding up. If science has made any mistakes, science has been underestimating it.
It is a very great mistake, and a very common one, even for well-read persons, to adopt the idea that the progress of the human race in the science of government, in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the establishment of morality and religion, has been constantly and steadily towards improvement and perfection.
We slow the progress of science today for all sorts of ethical reasons. Biomedicine could advance much faster if we abolished our rules on human experimentation in clinical trials, as Nazi researchers did.
It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.
‘Healing,’ Papa would tell me, ‘is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.’
I often am asked, ”Do you believe in UFOs?” I’m always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not of evidence. I’m almost never asked, ”How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?
Creativity is essential to particle physics, cosmology, and to mathematics, and to other fields of science, just as it is to its more widely acknowledged beneficiaries – the arts and humanities.
In order for the United States to do the right things for the long term, it appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humiliation. Sputnik helped us fund good science – really good science: the semiconductor came out of it.
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world.
I always say, ‘Be near science and technology, and you will never fail.’
Many physicists these days sound like the Delphic oracle – with equations.
A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.
A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion
The promise of artificial intelligence and computer science generally vastly outweighs the impact it could have on some jobs in the same way that, while the invention of the airplane negatively affected the railroad industry, it opened a much wider door to human progress.
Molecular machines display a key signature or hallmark of design, namely, irreducible complexity. In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role in the origin of the system… We find such systems within living organisms.
[T]he salient question is whether the increasing awareness of [heart] disease beginning in the 1920s coincided with the budding of an epidemic or simply better technology for diagnosis.
The universe is an illusion, created by consciousness to entertain itself.
Not everything needs to multiply. Look at Zero. And its impact!
Eve and the apple was the first great step in experimental science.
If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.
We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.
Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history.
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter—for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.
Science of mind teaches you how to realize how much control you have over your own life. It teaches you that we have the ability to change our lives at any point we choose.
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
Everything you see is a story, every stone, every tree, every leaf.
Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.
The indigenous peoples never had, and still do not have, the place that they should have occupied in the progress and benefits of science and technology, although they represented an important basis for this development.
The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.
It’s never too late to pursue your dreams, even if you feel like you may have missed the boat. Embrace the journey and trust in your ability to succeed, no matter your age or previous experience.
It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation, which is truly the most important time in your life.
If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories; those that don’t work, those that break down and those that get lost.
The poetry underlying science comes from its inevitable human imperfections. Science is a messy process of discovery, revision, and (at its best) enlightenment. It is like a complex tapestry that is being woven on one end while being torn apart at other ends, all with threads that we are learning to spin from raw materials on the fly.
Whenever anyone says, ‘theoretically,’ they really mean, ‘not really.’
Truth is simple,Lies are complex.Light is simple,Darkness is complex.Curiosity is simple,Conspiracy is complex.Acceptance is simple,Discrimination is complex.Peace is simple, war is complex.Love is simple, hate is complex.
Watching large mammals living their ordinary life in the jungle is extraordinary
It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.
I’ve had many dreams useless dreams while sleeping. Priceless are those that guide me while awake.
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.
Worrying never solved a problem, made anyone richer, made anyone a better person, provided a solution, or prevented a disaster, but worrying has led a good many people to ill health and an early grave.
The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it.
There is no indisputable proof for the big bang, said Hollus. And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?
They often say, “What’s the point in astrology if you can’t change yourdestiny?”. Well, it’s true that you can’t change your destiny, but still it helpsknowing about gravity.
Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.
It’s true in everything, not just in drag: To be a success, you have to understand the landscape. You have to know thyself, and you have to know your history so that you can draw from people who have figured out the equation you are faced with. It’s not rocket science.
Mathematics is the cheapest science. Unlike physics or chemistry, it does not require any expensive equipment. All one needs for mathematics is a pencil and paper.
Technological prescience in science fiction usually requires an author with luck. Societal prescience requires a poet.
I want to tell her that she’s luminous, she’s so bright in my mind, sometimes I can’t focus.
The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this.The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem.This is:Change.Read it through again and you’ll get it.
Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).
I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here.
Just one tendril, leaping toward the dawn of a better horizon, at a time.
You don’t need to experiment with quantum physics to get that insight for yourself. You already contain so many more versions of you than you can imagine. You just need to locate them, accept their benefits and liabilities, and turn those into the best mixture of yours possible. Because that’s the you that the world needs now. You’ve got it all inside you. You just need to learn to let it out.
Forensic science offers great potential, as it draws on almost every discipline and, in doing so, creates widespread opportunity for innovation.
If this represents a basic need for order in the human mind and since, after all, the human mind is only part of the universe, the need probably exists because there is some order in the universe and the universe is not a chaos.
Find a printer paper and imagine a full-grown bird shaped something like a football with legs standing on it. Imagine 33,000 of these rectangles in a grid. (Broilers are never in cages, and never on multiple levels.) Now enclose the grid with windowless walls and put a ceiling on top. Run in automated (drug-laced) feed, water, heating, and ventilation systems. This is a farm.
We know the stories that led us to this moment. We know how actions of those who dealt with history’s changes created our today. Now we are in a historic moment of our own, and it’s our turn to guide how new technology determines the future.