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S Quotes

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“Scientists are educated from a very early time and a very early age to believe that the greater scientist is the scientist who makes discoveries or theories that apply to the greatest ambit of things in the world. And if you've only made a very good theory about snails, or a very good theory about some planets but not about the universe as a whole, or about all the history of humankind, then you have in some sense accepted a lower position in the hierarchy of the fame of science as it's taught to you as a young student.”

IfsWorldBelieveMadeWholeAgeYoungUniverseGreaterPositionStudentsTaughtPlanetsTheoryFameDiscoveryScientistVery GoodAcceptedEducatedHumankindHierarchySnailYoung Students
Author:Richard Lewontin
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“Scientists are entitled to be proud of their accomplishments, and what accomplishments can they call 'theirs' except the things they have done or thought of first? People who criticize scientists for wanting to enjoy the satisfaction of intellectual ownership are confusing possessiveness with pride of possession. Meanness, secretiveness and, sharp practice are as much despised by scientists as by other decent people in the world of ordinary everyday affairs; nor, in my experience, is generosity less common among them, or less highly esteemed.”

PeopleWorldFirstsDoneEnjoyCommonPracticePrideProudIntellectualOrdinaryScientistEverydayAffairSatisfactionPossessionGenerosityAccomplishmentDecentCriticizeOwnershipEntitledBe ProudConfusingDespisedMeannessPossessiveness
Author:Peter Medawar
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“Scientists are extremely keen on “common sense”, yet their hero Albert Einstein dismissively said, “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of eighteen.” Your senses and your common sense are both insufficient to the task that scientism assigns to them. They don’t tell you shit. As Bishop Berkeley pointed out, you have no experience of any objective thing called “matter”. Instead, you have a subjective experience of a subjective idea of what you label “matter”. You always encounter the idea of matter in your mind. You have no non-mental encounter with anything called matter, so where is your evidence that matter even exists? As Berkeley demonstrated, “matter” is a redundant hypothesis.”

MindMatterPhilosophyScienceCommon SenseEmpiricismBerkeleyPhenomenaScientific MaterialismNaive Realism
Author:Thomas Stark
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“Scientists are looking for a substance to fill all of space, a substance that will permit light to travel as a wave, and a substance that permits gravity to operate between masses. Ether does all that and much more but is undetectable without taking into consideration Tao’s consciousness, which is the answer to all the questions.”

SpiritualityEnlightenmentZenTao
Author:Chris Prentiss
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“Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics.”

PeopleWayDifferentPhilosophyScienceArtistPoetScientistPhilosopherDifferent WaysDifferent ThingsTemperamentDetectivesCollectorsExplorersArtisans
Author:Peter Medawar
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“Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics". To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile. Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life.”

ScienceChanceCoincidenceSerendipityTheismIntelligent DesignFine TuningIdAnthropic PrincipleFred Hoyle
Author:Paul Davies
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“Scientists are telling us that 350 parts per million [of carbon] in the atmosphere is the upper limit. We're at 387 parts per million now, and we're up in that zone where the risk of going past irrevocable tipping points is elevated. It's no different than going to a doctor and learning your cholesterol is too high, and you're at risk for a heart attack. You have to work to lower your cholesterol and hope to get there before the heart attack comes.”

HeartDifferentPastMillionsRiskLimitsDoctorsScientistAtmosphereZoneCarbonHeart AttackTippingIrrevocableCholesterolTipping Point
Author:Bill McKibben
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“Scientists are the easiest to fool. ... They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors-they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldFeelsChildrenProblemScienceLinesFoolLogicScientistExplanationLogicalNo ProblemPredictable
Author:James P. Hogan
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“Scientists are used to debating with one another about the finer points of new research. But increasingly, they find themselves battling their televisions and computer screens, which transmit ever-more-heated rhetoric from politicians, pundits, and other public figures who misinterpret, misrepresent, and malign scientific results.”

UsedResultsFiguresTelevisionPoliticianComputerResearchScientistScreensRhetoricTransmitPunditsPublic FiguresComputer Screen
Author:Lewis M. Branscomb
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“Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.”

BelieveHumansLawCoursesWishPrayerHuman BeingsEventsScientistIncludingAffairDuesLaws Of Nature
Author:Albert Einstein
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“Scientists believe that sharks are one of the oldest species of animals still in existence. Nature built them as perfect predators. Perfect killing machines. Nature hasn't had to revise or update them much. They were built right the first time. Dolphins are very different. Scientists say that millions of years ago, dolphins were land animals. Sea mammals not very different from humans and other mammals. They evolved their way back into the ocean. Part of that evolution included learning to cope with predators, with killer whales and sharks. I don't now what sea the Taxxon race evolved in. I don't know what natural predators they faced there. But they were not ready for this ocean. They were not ready to go one-on-one with the masters of Earth's deep seas. They were no match for dolphin or shark. -Animorphs #4, The Visitor page 69”

Animorphs
Author:K.A. Applegate
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“Scientists blame the audience for being too stupid, shallow, or lazy to understand. There has been a fascinating debate in the blogosphere lately about communicating science to the public, and it's clear that most scientists just don't get it. They can't be bothered to talk to real people. Nobody will care about your issues if the price they have to pay is listening to a long lecture from Morton the science bug.”

PeopleIfsLongHas BeensRealCarePayAudienceIssuesClearStupidListeningScientistBlameCommunicateDebateLazyFascinatingShallowBugsLecturesBothered
Author:Mark Powell
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“Scientists can have their judgment clouded by their professional aspirations. And the pure truth of faith, which you can think of as this clear spiritual water, is poured into rusty vessels called human beings, and so sometimes the benevolent principles of faith can get distorted as positions are hardened.”

ThinkingHumansSometimesSpiritualWaterHuman BeingsPrinciplesClearPositionPureJudgmentScientistAspirationVesselBenevolentHardenedClouded
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“Scientists can routinely predict a solar eclipse, to the minute, a millennium in advance. You can go to the witch doctor to lift the spell that causes your pernicious anaemia, or you can take Vitamin B12. If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. If you're interested in the sex of your unborn child, you can consult plumb-bob danglers all you want . . . but they'll be right, on average, only one time in two. If you want real accuracy . . . try amniocentesis and sonograms. Try science.”

IfsWantTryingChildrenTwoRealScienceSexCausesMinutesPrayingDoctorsScientistOur ChildrenAverageLiftsYour ChildrenWitchSpellsOne TimeBobAccuracyUnbornVitaminsEclipseMillenniumPerniciousPolioUnborn ChildWitch DoctorsSolar EclipseAnaemia
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Scientists constantly get clobbered with the idea that we spent 27 billion dollars on the Apollo programs, and are asked "What more do you want?" We didn't spend it; it was done for political reasons. ... Apollo was a response to the Bay of Pigs fiasco and to the successful orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin. President Kennedy's objective was not to find out the origin of the moon by the end of the decade; rather it was to put a man on the moon and bring him back, and we did that.”

MenWantIdeasEndsReasonDoneSciencePoliticalPresidentSuccessfulMoonProgramScientistDollarsResponseDecadesBillionsObjectivesFlightPigsApolloFiascoPresident KennedyBay Of Pigs
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Scientists construct facts by constantly making decisions about what they will consider significant, what experiments they should pursue, and how they will describe their observations.”

ShouldFactsDecisionScientistSignificantExperimentsPursueObservationConstructsMaking Decisions
Author:Ruth Hubbard
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