The controversy between Darwinism and intelligent design has the characteristics of major scientific revolutions in the past. Darwinists are losing power because they treat with contempt the very people on whom they depend the most:...

Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures of our own making. When called upon to act independently, we cry for...

Science is much better at finding things that exist than at ruling out things that don’t.

Life would again have to make superhuman efforts, “as in a battle,” to break open for himself a path through the truths created by the sciences which “dream of being but cannot see it in...

In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realtities of the situation, the less clear-cut...

The uniformity of the earth’s life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled....

The deepest of powers are often the most subtle. Something that most fail to realize… ☥

Science literacy is an important part of what it is to be an informed citizen of society.

[About the great synthesis of atomic physics in the 1920s]It was a heroic time. It was not the doing of any one man; it involved the collaboration of scores of scientists from many different lands....

{Recalling Professor ‘s remarks (1895) to a group of his graduate students about to go out with their degrees into the world beyond the university:}He talked to us for an hour on what was ahead...

Be sceptical, ask questions, demand proof. Demand evidence. Don’t take anything for granted. But here’s the thing: When you get proof, you need to accept the proof. And we’re not that good at doing that.

Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone,...

The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.

[About Pierre de Fermat] It cannot be denied that he has had many exceptional ideas, and that he is a highly intelligent man. For my part, however, I have always been taught to take a...

The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all.

I would say that all our sciences are the material that has to be mythologized. A mythology gives spiritual import – what one might call rather the psychological, inward import, of the world of nature...

Newton supposed that the case of the planet was similar to that of [a ball spun around on the end of an elastic string]; that it was always pulled in the direction of the sun,...

It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to...

Ossa autem alia quae sunt infra basilare non bene ad sensum apparent nisi ossa illa decoquantur, sed propter peccatum dimitiere consuevi. [The bones which are below the os basilare cannot be well seen unless they...

I like religion and art because they know they are servants to life; I hate science and philosophy because they think they are its masters.

Without art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without science, we should always worship false gods.

Seni sama pentingnya dengan matematika. Seni memanusiakan manusia. Seni menciptakan rasa empati

If superstition could contradict science, the world may as well be on the back of a turtle. But giving into turtle worship was a bridge too far.

Physicists often quote from T. H. White’s epic novel The Once and Future King, where a society of ants declares, ‘Everything not forbidden is compulsory.’ In other words, if there isn’t a basic principle of...

Night clubs are where Americans learn the laws of motion.

Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second...

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the descernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond...

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here...

The scientific creation story has majesty, power and beauty. and is infused with a powerful message capable of lifting our spirits in a way that its multitudinous supernatural counterparts are incapable of matching. It teaches...

Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.

Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet.

Living organisms were not independently created, but have descended and diversified over time from common ancestors. And thus, no other biological theory so elegantly explains this. Evolutionary theory has withstood the test of time—by way...

Free will is the sensation of making a choice. The sensation is real, but the choice seems illusory. Laws of physics determine the future.

Within this new work of art a creature from beyond the reach of Humanity has insinuated herself and now lurks there at the heart of the mystery, a power unimagined before our time.

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.

We have learnt that the exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadapted...

It is generally recognized that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multitasking, but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be...

In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don’t know if there’s a god or not…

Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only...

You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside...

Coelorum perrupit claustra.He broke through the barriers of the skies.[Herschel’s epitaph]

The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.

Life on Earth is not the result of a series of miracles performed by a supernatural god-creator, and it is definitely not a product of matter having a mind of its own, of an equally...

The determination of the average man is not merely a matter of speculative curiosity; it may be of the most important service to the science of man and the social system. It ought necessarily to...

Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its...

A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die – which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct.

You say that it is time to shake off the Mist, but Mankind walks in a Mist; that Reason which you cry up as the Glory of this Age is a Proteus and Cameleon that...

A Muslim must not hate his wife and if he be displeased with one bad quality in her, then let him be pleased with another that is good.

Interviewer: Didn’t Sagan want to believe?Druyan: he didn’t want to believe. he wanted to know.