#science

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. —Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995 ↗

— Daniel C. Dennett

#science #life

Reason is my prophet and it tells me that as a watch stops, so we die. It’s the end. If the watch doesn’t work properly, it must be fixed here and now by us. ↗

— Yann Martel

#life

A brief life burns brightly. ↗

— Stephen Baxter

#science-fiction #stephen-baxter #youth #life

Science of happiness lies in our understanding. The secrets of happiness lie in our capacity to expand our heart. ↗

— Amit Ray

#science-of-happiness #secrets-of-happiness #life

The whole tendency of modern life is towards scientific planning and organisation, central control, standardisation, and specialisation. If this tendency was left to work itself out to its extreme conclusion, one might expect to see the state transformed into an immense social machine, all the individual components of which are strictly limited to the performance of a definite and specialised function, where there could be no freedom because the machine could only work smoothly as long as every wheel and cog performed its task with unvarying regularity. Now the nearer modern society comes to the state of total organisation, the more difficult it is to find any place for spiritual freedom and personal responsibility. Education itself becomes an essential part of the machine, for the mind has to be as completely measured and controlled by the techniques of the scientific expert as the task which it is being trained to perform. ↗

— Christopher Henry Dawson

#history #modernity #politics #science #society

Think about it; the quicktank is given a job most of us would laugh out of town. Build a sophisticated camera capable of full 3-D input and peripheral pickup, using only water and jelly. Build an eye. ↗

— Warren Ellis

#science #spider-jerusalem #life

A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct actions of external conditions, and so forth. ↗

— Charles Darwin

#evolution #inquiry #life #science #study

Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying that to the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of humankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by engravings of the double helix on our alters? Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind. Both will be devastating to our future. And both are unnecessary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them. ↗

— Francis S. Collins

#science #beauty

Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius. ↗

— Sam Kean

#science #spite #love

I love science fiction, always have, always will. But it’s the kind of science fiction that I love which I think is an important distinction. ↗

— Matthew S. Williams

#science-fiction #love