“Had history been democratic in its ways, there would have been no farming and no indsturial revolution. Both leaps into the future were occasioned by unbearably painful crises that made most people wish they could recoil into the past.” PeopleWayHas BeensMadePastWishRevolutionCrisisDemocraticPainfulLeapFarmingIndustrial RevolutionRecoil Book:The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy Source: The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy
“there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you've made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. N my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don't work, so I have to give it up.” GivingTryingMadeIdeasHappensDifferencesStepsCasesJustifyLeapNew IdeasRoutesFillingIntuitiveFilling In Author:Stephen Hawking
“When we mistake what we can know for all there is to know, a healthy appreciation of one's ignorance in the face of a mystery like soil fertility gives way to the hubris that we can treat nature as a machine. Once that leap has been made, one input follows another, so that when the synthetic nitrogen fed to plants makes them more attractive to insects and vulnerable to disease, as we have discovered, the farmer turns to chemical pesticides to fix his broken machine.” KnowsWayGivingHas BeensMadeFacesTurnsMistakeMysteryLandIgnoranceBrokenHealthyDiseaseMachinesTreatsPlantAppreciationVulnerableAttractiveSoilFedsLeapChemicalsFarmersInsectsInputHubrisFertilitySyntheticPesticidesNitrogen Author:Michael Pollan