And although I have seen nothing but black crows in my life, it doesn’t mean that there’s no such thing as a white crow. Both for a philosopher and for a scientist it can be...

In that memorable year, 1822: Oersted, a Danish physicist, held in his hands a piece of copper wire, joined by its extremities to the two poles of a Volta pile. On his table was a...

One of the first unanswerable questions I asked was when I was eight years old. Some cousins of mine always said a prayer before eating: God is kind, God is good, And we thank him...

The barbeque is the root of all civilization

Science is the purest religion.

[When asked why are numbers beautiful?]It’s like asking why is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren’t beautiful, nothing...

presences” picking up something real that the rest of us can’t pick up, or are they hallucinating? Here again, we must end with the Big Shrug, a statue of which is being erected on the...

The realization, early in high school, that a particle behaved differently if observed or left alone.

…the life of the planet began the long, slow process of modulating and regulating the physical conditions of the planet. The oxygen in today’s atmosphere is almost entirely the result of photosynthetic living, which had...

It is safer to face a strong enemy in the field of battle, than to fight a war by the side of a weak friend.

Some people think emotionally more often than they think politically. Some think politically more often than they think rationally. Others never think rationally about anything at all.No judgment implied. Just an observation.

More about the selection theory: Jerne meant that the Socratic idea of learning was a fitting analogy for ‘the logical basis of the selective theories of antibody formation’: Can the truth (the capability to synthesize...

and be guided by a likewise rational ethic of human concern. You must do your utmost as individuals to improve your understanding, ability and compassion.

As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving...

I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life — past, present, and future. To understand biology is to understand that all life is linked to the earth from...

Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to the shimmering red presence in the clear night sky…

A lot of who you were in middle age was determined before you had a chance to manipulate, control, or eve understand the things around you. It was no mystery, he thought, why some old...

Science is a system of statements based on direct experience, and controlled by experimental verification. Verification in science is not, however, of single statements but of the entire system or a sub-system of such statements.

Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton’s time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true...

I am one of those who think, like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries.

If your golf instructor were to insist that you shave your head, sleep no more than four hours each night, renounce sex, and subsist on a diet of raw vegetables, you would find a new...

Like rain drops dripping on the floor like a thousand drumists beating those drums repeatedly,My blood runs through my veins ninety nine point nine metres per second when i think of you.

I had this terrible nightmare; I dreamt I was a politician and they were dragging me off to parliament

The progress of science has always been the result of a close interplay between our concepts of the universe and our observations on nature. The former can only evolve out of the latter and yet...

I received comments on how extraordinary it was that I could keep up speaking for exactly 45 minutes. Indeed, in an age of soundbites lasting some seconds and of quick quotes in the news, all...

It has been argued that close attention to the history of science is indispensable for doing good philosophy of science.

Never memorize something that you can look up.

I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always...

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly...

In this modern day, when only what we see is allowed to have certainity, and when scientific data seems to hold the trump card for truth, when only what can be measured exists, love defies...

Light is the only connection we have with the Universe beyond our solar system, and the only connection our ancestors had with anything beyond Earth. Follow the light and we can journey from the confines...

Despite the Great Chain of Being’s traditional ranking of humans between animals and angels, there is no evolutionary justification for the common assumption that evolution is somehow ‘aimed’ at humans, or that humans are ‘evolution’s...

I have to keep going, as there are always people on my track. I have to publish my present work as rapidly as possible in order to keep in the race. The best sprinters in...

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There’s something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that’s not the main...

We all love a good story. We all love a tantalizing mystery. We all love the underdog pressing onward against seemingly insurmountable odds. We all, in one form or another, are trying to make sense...

Nature’s stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest.

Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution.

THE QUESTION IS, OF COURSE, IS IT GOING TO BE POSSIBLE TO AMALGAMATE EVERYTHING,AND MERELY DISCOVER THAT THIS WORLD REPRESENTS DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ONE THING?

If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not...

Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is.

People, as curious primates, dote on concrete objects that can be seen and fondled. God dwells among the details, not in the realm of pure generality. We must tackle and grasp the larger, encompassing themes...

Most people do not actually know how to think for themselves, and unfortunately that prevents them from even knowing it.

[In geology,] As in history, the material in hand remains silent if no questions are asked. The nature of these questions depends on the ‘school’ to which the geologist belongs and on the objectivity of...

I must admit that when I chose the name, ‘vitamine,’ I was well aware that these substances might later prove not to be of an amine nature. However, it was necessary for me to choose...

The question why I don’t shake hand with someone,A reason is Behind;Scumbags call it Attitude but they really don’t know its actually the antimatter Waqas is composed of.

Magic is magic as long as humans can explain it logically!

the appearance” of design is not exactly evidence against design. According to Dawkins, though, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is almost certainly something else.

…Life had handed me a different set of cards and I was going to have to play my hand either way.

…nature as a whole was an exceptionally fine illustration of science.

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.