#scienc

Perhaps eggs are like neurons, which also are not replenished in adulthood: they know too much. Eggs must plan the party. Sperm need only to show up- wearing top hat and tails, of course. ↗

— Natalie Angier

#gender #science #sex #science

The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#music

The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively. ↗

— Niels Bohr

#quantum-mechanics #reality #science #nature

The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#science #theory #truth #religion

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. ↗

— Marshall McLuhan

#opinion #probes #social-science #understanding #wisdom

People wrap themselves in their beliefs. And they do it in such a way that you can't set them free. Not even the truth will set them free. ↗

— Michael Specter

#atheism #denialism #fundamentalism #michael-specter #science

In the mind of an ordinary, 1+1 = 2; but, in the mind of an extraordinary, 1+ 1 = 10. ↗

— Joey Lawsin

#science

To ride a bicycle is in itself some protection against superstitious fears, since the bicycle is the product of pure reason applied to motion. Geometry at the service of man! Give me two spheres and a straight line and I will show you how far I can take them. Voltaire himself might have invented the bicycle, since it contributes so much to man’s welfare and nothing at all to his bane. Beneficial to the health, it emits no harmful fumes and permits only the most decorous speeds. How can a bicycle ever be an implement of harm? ↗

— Angela Carter

#reason #science #superstition #science

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch. ↗

— Edgar D. Mitchell

#moon #politics #science #space #science

The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#chimpanzees #humanity #stories #science