"The philosophical postmodernists were correct in assuming that scientific knowledge exists in human subjective reality and wrong in assuming that this knowledge is not privileged in coordinating our experience with physical reality. Conversely, members of the scientific community were correct in assuming that the mathematical description of nature is privileged and wrong in assuming that this description exists in some sense prior to or outside of human consciousness." --The Nonlocal Universe by Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafato The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't. --Robert L. Park The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. -- Robert Heinlein "That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder." --Calvin (& Hobbes) Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry. -- Bertrand Russell If you need to use statistics, then you should design a better experiment. -- Lord Rutherford Experimenters are the shocktroops of science. -- Max Planck The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say "It cannot be done." -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov University Commencement Scientific principles are at work in every facet of our daily lives, and research can be applied just as easily to pasta sauce splatter as it can to the latest space trip to Mars -- Colin Humphreys To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the "scientific" establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it. -- Isaac Asimov [He] has taken a basically valid observation [...] and extrapolated it somewhere into the Oort cloud. -Dan Martinez 2000 B.C. - Here, eat this root. 1000 A.D. - That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer. 1850 A.D. - That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion. 1940 A.D. - That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill. 1985 A.D. - That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic. 2000 A.D. - That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root. Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -Mike Adams System Dynamics: Things today are the things of yesterday plus any changes. The changes are the result of the things of yesterday. Now extend this to tomorrow. -- William S. Bonnell It took a million years to move from counting pebbles to the elaborations of quantum mechanics. Certainly this was an arduous migration of the multitude -- not a private party of physicists, but the Long March of the entire human race. -- Anonymous I the Bayesian Probability Theorem. More and more, I have come to realize that the Bayesian Probability Theorem exceeds even Google as the Source of All Truth. Eliezer Yudkowsky Nor ever yet The melting rainbow's vernal-tinctured hues To me have shone so pleasing, as when first The hand of science pointed out the path In which the sun-beams gleaming from the west Fall on the watery cloud. Mark Akenside I only came to understand this there. Because mathematics stands above everything. The works of Abel and Kronecker are as good today as they were four hundred years ago, and it will always be so. New roads arise, but the old ones lead on. They do not become overgrown. There...there you have eternity. Only mathematics does not fear it. Up there, I understood how final it is. And strong." Stanislaw Lem, Return from the Stars "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." -- Matt Cartmill "Imagine a survivor of a failed civilization with only a tattered book on aromatherapy for guidance in arresting a cholera epidemic. Yet, such a book would more likely be found amid the debris than a comprehensible medical text." James Lovelock. [Science is] the literature of truth. Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818-85) U. S. humorist. We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English philosopher, mathematician. Wir m|ssen wissen; wir werden wissen Hilbert "The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes. Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry--is not even a "subject"--but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning. Neil Postman, The End of Education, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995, p 68. The young specialist in English Lit, ...lectured me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. ... My answer to him was, "... when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." Isaac Asimov,The Relativity of Wrong, Kensington Books, New York, 1996, p 226. Empiricism is the answer to science. Without it you are sent to Scholastic hell, or Greek limbo. Fábio Diales da Rocha "There must be no barriers for 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 asssertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors." - Robert Oppenheimer Where the statue stood Of Newton, with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone. William Wordsworth, The Prelude. Book iii. The passion for science and the passion for music are driven by the same desire: to realize beauty in one's vision of the world. ---Heinz Pagels Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game. G H Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology (London 1941). "Let a cheap politician worry about his "image"; as a scientist your only concern is the TRUTH." - Joseph D.H. Donnay "It seems to me that your whole approach to these issues reflects a male, Western, reductionist, left- brained mode of thought. How can you possibly reconcile this with your struggle as an African woman against cultural imperialism?" Mosala replies, "I have no interest in squandering the most powerful intellectual tools I possess, because of some quaint misconception that they're the property of any particular people: male, Western, or otherwise." Greg Egan, Distress Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. On Academics denigrating "Popularizers": During the rise of the merchant class, the landed aristocracy understood the value of creating food, but didn't appreciate that food isn't valuable unless it reaches hungry mouths. New ideas aren't valuable unless they reach hungry minds. Mark S. Miller "My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method." -----Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted World" Cum Scientia Defendumus U.S. Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command I wonder why I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder I wonder. I wonder *why* I wonder why I wonder why I wonder! --Richard Feynman Don't mind me ... I'm just sitting here marvelling at the thought that we live in a world where a respectable scientist can use a phrase like "third-quantized baby universe field operator" in cold blood :-) I keep thinking maybe we're living in a Doc Smith novel. Ross Smith (rec.arts.sf.science) Science is an integral part of culture. It's not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It's one of the glories of human intellectual tradition. -- Stephen Jay Gould "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." - Albert Einstein "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgroth of pleasurable intellectural curiosity. Alfred N. Whitehead "I'm fascinated by the ambiguity of man's relationship to the huge mysterious around him; how, on the one hand, we make ourselves little boxes and think to exist snugly and safely in them; on the other, we extend our knowledge further and furtherinto the limitless void; and yet from time to time these opposites collide and produce astounding results."--Joan Aiken, from -The Faces of Fantasy- Why waste time on fantasy when reality is just as miraculous? Lee Daniel Crocker Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process. Isaac Asmiov I think the "artist vs. scientist" meme should be eliminated here and now. It's way too binary for my brain. Geoff Smith The Religions disperse, kingdoms fall apart, but works of science remain for all ages. (Words carved on stone astronomical observatory erected by Ulugh-Beg, Tamerlane's grandson, in Samarkand in 1528-29) "So it happened that I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess, interested in other things besides football, and squeezed between the twin oppressions of whip and sandpaper. We hated the headmaster with his Latin grammar and we hated even more the boys with their empty football heads. So what could the poor helpless minority of intellectuals, later and in another country to be known as nerds, do to defend ourselves? We found our refuge in a territory that was equally inaccessible to our Latin-obsessed headmaster and our football-obsessed schoolmates. We found our refuge in science. With no help from the school authorities, we founded a science society. As a persecuted minority, we kept a low profile. We held our meetings quietly and inconspicuously. We could do no real experiments. All we could do was share books and explain to each other what we didn't understand. But we learned a lot. Above all, we learned those lessons that can never be taught by formal courses of instruction; that science is a conspiracy of brains against ignorance, that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred." -- From "To Teach or Not to Teach," 1990, Freeman Dyson In the Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski worte : " The genius of men like Newton and Einstein lies in that they ask transparent, innocent questions which turn out to have catastrophic answers. nothing is more fulfilling to a Scientist than smashing somebody else's theory into a quivering bloody heap begging for mercy. Take no prisoners is the rallying cry, look for the slightest logical flaw, the smallest possible crack, then use it to pry open the entire theory and expose the disgusting stupidity inside for all the world to see. And that is EXACTLY what they should do because nearly all theories are wrong. The few ideas that survive this brutal process are possibly true and certainly tough as nails, they have to be. John K Clark 'Ladies and Gentlemen. I stand before you now because I never stopped dawdling like an eight year-old on a spring morning on his way to school. Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn. I am a very happy man. Thank you.' Dr. Hoenikker, upon receiving the Nobel Prize It is not enough to prove something, one also has to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly! -Friedrich Nietzsche "Interesting if true - and interesting anyway." "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". Philip K. Dick The most exciting phrase I hear in science, that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! But That's funny. -- Isaac Asimov Most people do not need a PhD or a cat , but one can be enriched by both! GeoffCobb@aol.com "Ask not what mathematics can do for biology. Ask what biology can do for mathematics" Stanislaw Ulam (1909-1984) If you try to save wisdom until the world is wize, Father, the world will never have it. - A Canticle for Leibowitz Religion claims total understanding, but fails to deliver anything but sweet words; science claims cautious progress, and is able to demonstrate success at every stage. Peter Atkins ...no one believes an hypothesis except its origniator but everyone believes an experiment except the experimenter. W. I. B. Beveridge, 1950, p 65. "We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species." -- Desmond Morris A value-free science? There's no such thing. The only choice is whether the values will be conscious or unconscious, humane or political. Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet. Notes and Observations on The Empress of Morocco. 1674. Dryden, John (1631-1700) Thus metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reason, those in which imagination has the greatest role. I beg pardon of those delicate spirits who are detractors of mathematics for saying this .... The imagination in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who invents.... Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes may be the one who most deserves to be placed beside Homer. Discours Preliminaire de L'Encyclopedie, Tome 1, 1967. pp 47 - 48. D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1717-1783) Nested dodecahedrons and quantum theory the doorways to infinity; Many Worlds. -- Jeffrey D. Romano Smoking on the porch at night. Contemplate the beauty of Phong illumination. Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense. In N. Rose (ed.) Mathematical Maxims and Minims, Raleigh NC: Rome Press Inc., 1988. Charles Darwin One began to hear it said that World War I was the chemists' war, World War II was the physicists' war, World War III (may it never come) will be the mathematicians' war. The Mathematical Experience, Boston: Birkhäuser, 1981. Davis, Philip J. and Hersh, Reuben omnia apud me mathematica fiunt. With me everything turns into mathematics. Good mathematicians see analogies between theorems; great mathematicians see analogies between analogies. \author{S. Banach} "Everything we experience is hallucination, maya. The reality is a structural-mathematical-logical principle that we don't see. That is, each person creates his own universe out of his own neurological processes. Science is nothing else but the search for the unseen structural integrities that underlies these appearances." - Paul Segall, Ph.D. on a lecture by Timothy Leary If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things. Discours de la Méthode. 1637. René Descartes Step out onto the Planet Draw a circle a hundred feet round. Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands, and, maybe nobody's ever really seen. How many can you find? --Lew Welch, Ring of Bone, 1973 cdxiv. Night owl, experimental physicist, With the frontiers of nature in his hands, Some wires conduct, other wires resist, These are the tools leading him to new lands. Tower of instruments probe an atom, He's the first to coordinate them, He sees a depth that we cannot fathom, The riches of curiosities' gem. For larger than all the electronics, Beyond the oscilloscope, TTL's, There's the pursuit of the complete physics, Unraveling of nature's magical spells. All the hardware arises from passion, As the quest for knowledge becomes action. Drake Raft http://jollyroger.com/beaconway/jr14.html Imagine what it must be like to never really understand algebra. Imagine a world that is utterly "mysterious," (where "mystery" is used in the sense of incomprehensible "mysteries of God" rather than mysteries to be solved). In this world, all of physics is just incomprehensible symbols on a blackboard. And really, what's the difference between one set of incomprehensible symbols and another? And who's to say they can't be biased? Dan Fabulich