A belief in Science
Science provides a means of obtaining useful knowledge about the world through application of the scientific method, which includes detailed observations, analysis of the data collected, formulation and validation of hypotheses, along with peer review of methods and results.
Science represents one important way of understanding the world in which we live, and science-based engineering represents one important means of improving the human condition.
Quotations
“Human psychology will never be fully explained”
It’s all the reasons why human psychology will never be fully explained or pictured by scientific investigation — there are just too many variables, too many vectors pressing in on every incident. It’s the reason why storytelling and songwriting and poetry-making will always be so much more effective organizers and vehicles of our experience than studies in social science.
Adam Gopnik, from the book All That Happiness Is, 2024
“An agenda of ambition and hope”
This spirit of fraternity must enable us to build an agenda of ambition and hope, as our two countries share the same faith in freedom, in democratic values, in empowerment through education and work, and in progress through science and knowledge.
Emmanuel Macron, from the remarks “Macron Remarks on 1-Dec-2022”, 1 Dec 2022
“Apes and Humans”
Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the apes casually knock them down – toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings of Earth. Instead, we are more like the nouveau riche, incompletely accommodated to our recent exalted state, insecure about who we are, and trying to put as much distance as possible between us and our humble origins.
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, from the book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are, 1993, © Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
“Art, Science and Empire”
The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.
“Chimps and Humans”
On the basis of all the evidence, the closest relative of the human proves to be the chimp. The closest relative of the chimp is the human. Not orangs, but people. Us. Chimps and humans are nearer kin than are chimps and gorillas or any other kinds of ape not of the same species.
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, from the book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are, 1993, © Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
“Discoveries and Inventions”
Beavers build houses; but they build them in nowise differently, or better, now than they did five thousand years ago…. Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. These improvements he effects by Discoveries and Inventions.
Abraham Lincoln, from the speech “Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions”, 1858
“The exercise of the intellect”
From the time when the exercise of the intellect became a source of strength and of wealth, we see that every addition to science, every fresh truth and every new idea became a germ of power placed within the reach of the people.
Alexis de Tocqueville, from the book Democracy in America, 1835
“The Mysterious”
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.
Albert Einstein, from the book The World As I See It, 1949
“Notions to Explain Nature”
We see therefore that all the notions whereby the common people are wont to explain Nature are merely modes of imagining and denote not the nature of anything but only the constitution of the imagination.
Baruch Spinoza, from the book The Ethics, 1677
“The only dependable things are humility and looking”
Watching the man, hard-of-hearing, hard-of-speech Patty learns that real joy consists of knowing that human wisdom counts less than the shimmer of beeches in a breeze. As certain as weather is coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.
Richard Powers, from the book The Overstory, 2018, © Richard Powers
“Simplicity and Complexity”
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
“The Supreme Goal of All Theory”
It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.
Albert Einstein, from the lecture “On the Method of Theoretical Physics”, 1933
“The Toxic Mix of Religion and Tribalism”
The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.
E. O. Wilson, from the article “New Scientist”, November 2, 2005, © Reed Business Information Ltd.
“Violent Opposition from Mediocre Minds”
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein, from to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, 19 March 1940
“When you can measure what you are speaking about”
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
Lord Kelvin, from the lecture “Popular Lectures”, 3 May 1883