Quotes about science

It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut.

I refused to make any changes.

I said to them, haughtily, “It isn’t written in the stars that I must make a million dollars, but it is written in the stars that I must be true to my principles.”

So they fired me. They had someone else do the changes, and on June 26, 1978, I made them remove my name from the book. The project was a fiasco from beginning to end.

What does one do in a case like this? One is helpless in the face of cowardly publishers, pliant school boards, and fanatical ignoramuses. All I can do is write essays denouncing creationism with its believe in Adam, Eve, a talking serpent, and a worldwide Flood, all in a six- to ten-thousand-year-old universe, and in a supernatural creation of all the species of life so that they were different from the start.

Some of my essays appeared in as august an organ as The New York Times Magazine and that roused the anger of many Fundamentalists—an anger I am happy and proud to inspire.

If an interaction is too weak to be detectable or to exert influence in any way, then by any operational definition, it doesn't exist.

By the time I was reading the Bible, however, science fiction and science books had taught me their version of the universe and I was not ready to accept the creation tale of Genesis or the various miracles described throughout the book. My experience with the Greek myths (and, later, the grimmer Norse myths) made it quite obvious to me that I was reading Hebrew myths.

Does said, “You’re not a…a believer?”

“I’m a scholar,” said Mycelium with obvious pride.

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science, that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly.

"First, you refused to admit that there was a menace at all! Then you reposed an absolutely blind faith in the Emperor! Now you've shifted it to Hari Seldon. Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past – never on yourselves. It amounts to a diseased attitude – a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. There seems no doubt ever in your minds that the Emperor is more powerful than you are, or Hari Seldon wiser. And that's wrong, don't you see? It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject – written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that? And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad. We sit here,considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see? Here in the Periphery they've lost nuclear power. In Gamma Andromeda, a power plant has undergone meltdown because of poor repairs, and the Chancellor of the Empire complains that nuclear technicians are scarce. And the solution? To train new ones? Never! Instead they're to restrict nuclear power. Don't you see? It's Galaxy wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration – a stagnation!"

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one?

A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth?

A. I am.

Gillbret said, “Statistics show that one out of three stars has a planetary system.”

Biron nodded. It was a well-worn statistic. Every child was taught that in elementary Galactography.

There isn’t an instinct around that can’t give way to a good, persistent education. Not in human beings, where instincts are weak anyway. In fact, if you go about it right, education gets easier with each generation.

I accept nothing on authority. A hypothesis must be backed by reason, or else it is worthless.

The machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested.