Quotes from scientists

[exchemist]

"Shut up and calculate!"

David Mermin, describing the impatience of many physicists with metaphysical interpretations of quantum mechanics.

 

[exchemist]

"If you can't explain your physics to a barmaid, it is probably not very good physics."

Attributed to Ernest Rutherford.......

.....and notable for being utter rubbish! But then he lived at the end of the era in which Newtonian mechanics was just about enough to handle most problems in physics.

 

[exchemist]

"We looked at it, carefully, and that's the way it [nature] looks. You don't like it? Go somewhere else! To another universe, where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy."

Richard Feynman - explaining he was not going to pretend quantum physics is easier than it is.

Original video here:

 

[PureX]

In theology we must consider the predominance of authority; in philosophy the predominance of reason. (Johannes Kepler)

This is smarter (and deeper) than it appears on the surface. I wonder if Kepler realized this?

 

[PureX]

Let there be no doubt that as they are currently practiced, there is no common ground between science and religion. (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

I like Neil, but this is simply untrue.

 

[PureX]

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. (Carl Sagan)

The magnificence of 'artifice'.

 

[PureX]

The options available to a creative person are ever limited by the choices offered by a philosopher. (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

This is, in part, why philosophy is important. Creativity is an excellent tool, but without reason, and qualification, it goes nowhere.

 

[PureX]

Thanks for this thread.

Ditto!

 

[Vee]

I'm not sure if he was a scientist, but I like this quote by Walter Kotschnig:
"Let us keep our minds open, by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out!"

 

[ratiocinator]

"Not knowing is much more interesting than believing an answer which might be wrong."
-- Richard Feynman

 

[ratiocinator]

"Prediction is extremely difficult. Especially about the future."
-- Niels Bohr

 

[ChristineM]

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Let there be no doubt that as they are currently practiced, there is no common ground between science and religion. (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

I like Neil, but this is simply untrue.

I'm not so sure about that. When we think of Stephen J. Gould's notion that science and religion are "non-overlapping magisterial," I think what's being said is that there really is no commonality between them. They are totally different ways of thinking about the world, and "as they are currently practiced," tend not to borrow from one another.

 

[paarsurrey]

I've been collecting quotes from scientists. Thought I'd share some. (One per post so people can comment if they want).

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it. (Blaise Pascal)

"unless we love the truth"

Is it must for the Skeptics/Humanists to love truth, please?

Regards

 

[exchemist]

I'm not so sure about that. When we think of Stephen J. Gould's notion that science and religion are "non-overlapping magisterial," I think what's being said is that there really is no commonality between them. They are totally different ways of thinking about the world, and "as they are currently practiced," tend not to borrow from one another.

Yes, but that's what is so slippery about Tyson's way of expressing it. "No common ground" means there is nothing on which the two parties can agree, suggesting in effect a fundamental opposition between the two. Gould was far more careful and non-confrontational. He suggests, rather, that the two are simply orthogonal to one another, addressing different questions.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

"unless we love the truth"

Is it must for the Skeptics/Humanists to love truth, please?

Regards

No. It is enough to simply accept the truth, when it is shown to be the truth. There are truths that are not going to be easy to love -- for example when your doctor tells you that you have an inoperable cancer, and need to get your affairs in order.

 

[exchemist]

"I, at any rate am convinced that [God] does not throw dice."

Einstein, expressing dissatisfaction with the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics. This one is interesting, as he seems to have been wrong about it.

 

[shmogie]

If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth. (Carl Sagan)

Hmmm. Jesus asked ¨ what is truth?¨"He answered His own question "I am the Truth¨.

 

[exchemist]

Hmmm. Jesus asked ¨ what is truth?¨¨.

Are you sure? I thought that was Pontius Pilate.

 

[PureX]

I'm not so sure about that. When we think of Stephen J. Gould's notion that science and religion are "non-overlapping magisterial," I think what's being said is that there really is no commonality between them. They are totally different ways of thinking about the world, and "as they are currently practiced," tend not to borrow from one another.

It was hyperbole. And I'm sure that Neil knew that. The commonality is us. The commonality is the fact of our insurmountable cognitive limitations. The commonality is our willingness and desire to see patterns, and meaning, in the great mystery of being.