God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Scientific inquiry shouldn’t stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole
Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. ibid.
My faith in the expertise of physicists like Richard Feynman, for instance, permits me to endorse – and, if it comes to it, bet heavily on the truth of – a proposition that I don’t understand. So far my faith is not unlike religious faith, but I am not in the slightest bit motivated to go to my death rather than recant the formulas of physics. Watch: E doesn’t equal MC squared, it doesn’t, it doesn’t! I was lying, so there. Daniel C Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. ibid.
Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications. Daniel C Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about – yet. There have been other great mysteries: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life and reproduction, the mystery of the design to be found in nature, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity. These were not just areas of scientific ignorance, but of utter bafflement and wonder. We do not yet have all the answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them ... With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist – and hope – that there will never be a demystification of consciousness. Daniel C Dennett, Consciousness Explained
That happens all the time. You know. Well, people make errors or jump at conclusions. You see, it’s so painful to write down all the details of a proof that at times you say, All right, this is obvious, and you go on. Usually that’s where the error lies ... I have been guilty of that myself and I think everybody else had been at times. Professor Jean DieuDonne
It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes. George Carlin, Brain Droppings
Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought. Edward Teller, The Pursuit of Simplicity
What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic? Steven Novella
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error. Bertolt Brecht
Those of us who could had a duty to show that not only science was wonderful but that science was human, that scientists had some right to say that they were doing the most human things in the world, the most natural things; and that we must stop being professionals and become people. Jacob Bronowski, interview The Parkinson Show, BBC 1974
The essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer. Jacob Bronowski
Agriculture creates a technology from which all physics, all science, takes off. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 2/13: The Harvest of the Seasons, BBC 1973
Galileo is the creator of the modern scientific method. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 6/13: The Starry Messenger
There are two traditions of explanation that march side by side in the Ascent of Man: one is the analysis of the physical structure of the world, the other is the study of the processes of life. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 9/13: Evolution: The Ladder of Creation
Niels Bohr ... what he questioned was the structure of the world. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 10/13: World Within World
Ernest Rutherford who round about 1910 was the outstanding experimental physicist in the world. Rutherford was then at Manchester. And in 1911 he proposed a new model for the atom. ibid.
One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an exact picture of the material world. Once achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that aim is unattainable. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 11/13: Knowledge or Certainty *****
There is no absolute knowledge ... All information is imperfect. ibid.
The errors can’t be taken out of the observations. ibid.
Histories has many ironies ... The errors are inextricable bound up with the nature of human knowledge. ibid.
There is no way of exchanging information that does not demand an act of judgment. ibid.
All those woodland walks and conversations came to a brilliant climax in 1927. Early that year Werner Heisenberg gave a new characterisation of the electron: yes, it is a particle, he said, but a particle which yields only limited information. That is, you can specify where it is at this instant, but then you cannot impose on it a specific speed and direction of setting off. Or conversely, if you insist that you’re going to fire it at a certain speed and a certain direction then you cannot specify exactly what its starting point is, or its end point. ibid.
Heisenberg called this the Principle of Uncertainty. ibid.
We should call it the Principle of Tolerance. ibid.
All knowledge, all information, between human beings can only be exchanged within a play of tolerance. ibid.
Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. ibid.
It is not the business of science to inherit the Earth, but to inherit the moral imagination. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 13/13: The Long Childhood
All science, all human thought, is a form of play. The neoteny of the intellect. ibid.
Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man. Jacob Bronowski
In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs. Francis Darwin, son of Charles Darwin
We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. J Robert Oppenheimer, cited The Decision to Drop the Bomb, 1965
The history of science is rich in the example of the fruitfulness of bringing two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas, developed in separate contexts for the pursuit of new truth, into touch with one another. J Robert Oppenheimer, Science and the Common Understanding, 1954
The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance – these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community. ibid.
There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. J Robert Oppenheimer
We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. J Robert Oppenheimer
The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose. J Robert Oppenheimer, MIT lecture 25th November 1947
When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. J Robert Oppenheimer, 1954 Security Hearings