Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known.When modern culture admitted that there were many important things that it still did not know, and when that admission of ignorance was married to the idea that scientific discoveries could give us new powers, people began suspecting that real progress might be possible after all.
The most celebrated moments in the history of science are precisely those moments when accepted wisdom is overturned and new theories are born.
An institution can call itself by whatever name it wants, but if it lacks a strong self-correcting mechanism, it is not a scientific institution.
Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.
There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.