Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Quotes from Scientists.

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

-- Edsger Dijkstra, Computer Scientist,
father of "Structured Programming"
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edsger_Dijkstra

"It [Intelligent Design] is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?"

--Richard Dawkins

TFF, your link is entertaining.

"Teaching BASIC should be a criminal offense."

I am glad I did not know that. In about 1978 I taught myself BASIC, used it a great deal, and never tried to go on to something better. Not my major interest.
jjw

Dear jjw,

I'm glad you found it amusing. BASIC was also my first language. I learned back in 1975 or 1976. Our HS had a pdp-8 (marketed as an Edusystem 25) minicomputer. It operated on actual core memory and we interfaced to it via a control panel of switches, and two teletypes (110 Baud).

The teletypes had tape-punch/readers. There was no disk space. We loaded the OS by punching in a bootstrap loader and putting in the OS tape (paper tape). It took maybe 30 to 45 minutes to boot up.

Those were the good old days....I learned fortran IV on an IBM 360/44 which had less power than the PC I'm running on right now. We had a Pascal compiler that was done as a graduate program by one of the grad students and it was a little off kilter. Sometimes it would work and other times it burped out the strangest stuff. I haven't used either Pascal or Fortran IV since. I have used the skill of flow-charting that I learned then, though. That has come in handy on occasion. I look back and think, "Why, oh why didn't I go into computers back then?" I got too soon old and too late smart, I guess. Lack of female role models might have had something to do with it, too.

'I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way."

Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote this in his essay, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," originally published in "The American Biology Teacher, March 1973, and available here:
http://www.2think.org/dobzhansky.shtml

For more info on Dobzhansky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution

"ʺI do not choose to speak or write more clearly than I think.ʺ

-- Niels Bohr,
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/holton/CandorIntegrity.pdf

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1922/bohr-bio.html

"Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery."
- Enrico Fermi

http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/f/e/fermi%20enrico/source.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1938/fermi-lecture.pdf

"We accepted the products of science; we rejected its methods."

-- Carl Sagan, "Who Speaks for Earth?", the last chapter of Cosmos

http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_cosmos_who_speaks_for_earth.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

"The dung-mimicking insect is well protected, but can there be any edge in looking 5% like a turd?"
-- Stephen J. Gould, Ever Since Darwin, p. 104.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould

"If at first it doesn't accelerate, get another booster."
Wehrner von Braun on the failed mission of the TX3 rockets

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. "
-- Marie Sklodowska Curie, first person to win two nobel prizes.

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/curie.html

"Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?"
-- Oliver Heaviside

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside

"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."

-- Albert Einstein in "Out of My Later Years"

"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
-- Werner Heisenberg

http://www.notablebiographies.com/He-Ho/Heisenberg-Werner.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1932/heisenberg-bio.html

He wrote a book called "Physics and Beyond" which is my favorite (auto-)biography of a scientist.

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein

http://www.humboldt1.com/~gralsto/einstein/quotes.html

Let's not forget my fave, also attributed to Einstein - "If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what does an empty desk indicate?"

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
-- Wernher von Braun

(I've seen and heard this quote dozens of times, but I don't know the original source for it.)

http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/vonbraun/bio.html

"Science is facts; just as houses are made of stone, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house, and a collection of facts is not necessarily science."
-- Henri Poincar

Nice one TFF

We have fossils... We win!
-Lewis Black, on creationism

"No generality is true...not even this one." - (Rutherford? - Not sure of the attribution,
but the quotes worth mentioning)

"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true."

--Carl Sagan

"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls."

--M. Cartmill

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."
~ Richard Feynman

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there."
~ Richard Feynman

"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth --- often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable."

-- Hypatia, Librarian at Alexandria, mathematician, scholar, lecturer.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9041785/Hypatia

Excellent IFF ... here is another gem from the lady:

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all"

For those not familiar with her she is a study in intelligence. Sixteen hundred years ago, Hypatia became one of the world's leading scholars in mathematics and astronomy. Hypatia's legendary knowledge, modesty, and public speaking ability flourished during the era of the Great Library of Alexandria. Hypatia is credited with contributions to geometry and astrometry, and she is thought instrumental in the development of the sky-measuring astrolabe.

A role model sorely needed in the current age.

Thanks DA. I'd never heard of her.

A tad more info on her from
http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_hypatia.htm

"Hypatia ... contributed greatly to that city's intellectual community. Unfortunately, she was also a pagan and her wide popularity represented a threat to Christian religious leaders.

"As a consequence, a Christian mob on orders from the Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria, dragged her off of her chariot and scraped the flesh from her body while she was still alive. Cyril was in no way punished for this."

Most of what I have read previously said that Cyril "incited," but did not order her murder.
What this blurb doesn't tell you is that not only wasn't Cyril punished, he was sainted! In fairness, one of her closest friends and students was Bishop Synesius.

Imagine - when she was 12 years old, philosophers from hundreds of miles away (a huge distance in those days) would come to listen to her speak and discuss philosophy with her.

A more detailed history is
http://pages.prodigy.net/fljustice/hypatia.html

Do you know if the church ever officially apologized? Not that it would right the wrong.

And some people wonder why I find religious zealots among the scariest things in the universe.

http://history.enotes.com/history-fact-finder/religion/what-criteria-for-sainthood
says
"Criteria for sainthood or canonization (being declared holy by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church) are leading a holy life, conducting miracles, and suffering or sometimes dying because of one's faith (martyrdom). The Roman Catholic Church keeps a list of saints. However, some names were dropped from the list in 1969 because inclusion could not be justified by history."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria

"His writings and his theology have remained central to tradition of the Fathers and to all Orthodox to this day."

Does "guilty of encouraging torture and atrocities" count against Sainthood?

And ... just wondering ... if the Saints have been in heaven for hundreds of years ... and they change their mind in the Vatican ... do they lost some privileges or go straight to Hades?

The Pope has not returned my calls.

And I'm about as welcome at the Vatican as Jesus Christ would be (though not for the same reason I can assure you).

"In science the authority embodied in the opinion of thousands is not worth a spark of reason in one man."
Galileo Galilei, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

reminds me of another by Anatole France that I quoted in another thread,

"If a million people say a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing."

??to blame the current trust crisis in science on the public's indifference is certainly not correct either.? - Vivienne Parry

To see more on the "public perception of science," check out my blog.

http://blog.myspace.com/120086790

Life is nature's MOST EFFICIENT way of turning light into heat. ~Samwik

~Sorry, just had to get the NOKIA post off the top.

~samwik

To see more on the "public perception of science," check out my blog.

http://blog.myspace.com/120086790

?I never thought of stopping, and I just hated sleeping. I can't imagine having a better life.?
-- Barbara McClintock, Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, 1983.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1983/mcclintock-autobio.html

She's also a member of the National Academy of Science:
http://www.nas.edu/history/members/mcclintock.html

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discovery, is not 'Eureka' (I found it!), but 'That's funny...' " - Isaac Asimov.

So in the summer of 1930, amid his sailing and ruminations in Caputh, he composed a credo, "What I Believe,"

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness...."

From Einstein by Walter Isaacson. © 2007 by Walter Isaacson. To be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1607298,00.html
...3 pages! A real treat.

~

Finding out about the 'something our minds cannot grasp' is not religiousness it is humanity. The feeling of wonder, the glory in life and the search for reason and meaning are not exclusive to those who believe in the divine supernatural. Of course there are inexplicable events; to a religious person they are evidence for gods- to a person who is not a believer they are opportunities to explore the reasons, to understand the cause or just to enjoy the pleasure of the moment.

I think you're right. Atheists may be equally aware of the "feelings", whilst being satisfied that all is part of nature, and that a deity is not required as an explanation. It appears, though, that Einstein held a different view. To him religiousness was the recognition of a deity ("behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp"), and he was saying that nothing is totally explicable by any other means. It may be reasonable to assume that he saw God as the necessary fundamental principal behind all of existence. Is that less scientific than any other reason-based speculation regarding the universe? One could argue that it falls into the same category as string theory and multiverse theory, both of which comply with observations, but neither of which can untimately be proven.

Andrea Thompson
I found this reading the topic on physics.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070607/sc_space/mostdistantblackholediscovered;_ylt=AsL12sjJKBQP7ZMb3fInJtRxieAA

Is this an announcement of a fact, or of faith? If it is a fact how do scientists go about proving it? How real is something that may have existed billions of years ago?

I think it's just an announcement of an observation; y'know, like 'today we saw an eclipse (caused by moon moving in front of the sun).'

Anyway, I have lots of catching up to do; but thought this was funny. Get it? ...thanks WWP.


~SA

"Is this an announcement of a fact, or of faith? If it is a fact how do scientists go about proving it? How real is something that may have existed billions of years ago?"

It is the statement of a conclusion derived from reasonable inference. No one has ever seen an electron. No one will ever see an electron. In science, by which I mean actual science and not the comic- book version promulgated by various religious authorities, "fact" does not imply "absolute certainty."

Instead "fact" means something so well supported by the existing evidence and models that it would be ridiculous to withhold at least tentative acceptance of it. The Earth is not flat; The Earth is not the center of the universe; electrons exist; objects at rest tend to stay at rest; objects in motion tend to stay in motion; it is gravitation and not angels which causes the orbits of planets about stars, of stars about stars, and of galaxies about each other; evolution has occurred and continues to occur; the entropy of an isolated system does not decrease; the earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen (even though no one has ever seen a nitrogen atom).

TFF says And, as a unitheist/panentheist, I can certainly agree.

The great mathematician, Alfred North Whithead, who was a proponent of process philsophy and theology, was on the same general path. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/

Alfred North Whitehead (b.1861 - d.1947), British mathematician, logician and philosopher is best known for his work in mathematical logic and the philosophy of science. In collaboration with Bertrand Russell, he authored the landmark three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910, 1912, 1913) and contributed significantly to twentieth-century logic and metaphysics.

BTW, when atheists say, "I do not believe in angels, heaven, hell or God...", I am curious to know what idea, or concept, they have in mind when the use words like 'angel', hell, or 'God'. I make this comment in the spirit of dialogue and communication.

One does not have to beleive in something to use it. For example, I talk about Hades or the Fates, or any of the Greek gods, and I do not beleive in them (other than ingenious myth). Sorry, but to me that seems like an irrelevant argument. It's as simple as that, although perhaps others might think it differently than me, I am not sure.

Exactly Tim. Also you do not have to believe in something in order not to believe in something else!

Tim wrote:

"I talk about Hades or the Fates, or any of the Greek gods, and I do not beleive in them".

Why not Tim? What makes you so sure they don't exist? And the muses? Perhaps you accept they exist?

You are of course quite correct terry--my disbelief does not preclude something's existence. But it is not proved for anyone other than me because I happen to
believe in it.

Tim- to the Ancient Greeks those imagined dieties were real, just like god is for some today, and so are for eg, the gods of the Hindus real and the Spirits that inhabit Australia real- to those who believe it. You make things real by your belief. There has to be a decision to believe, like in Peter Pan where the children have to clap if they beliieve in fairies and so Tinkerbell does not die.

Ellis. Are you saying there are no spirits that inhabit Australia? You mean I've been wrong all these years? Outback Oz is pretty unreal though.

Yet another viewpoint for the collection:

Many of us perceive/acknowledge/understand that both the spiritual 'real' and the scientific 'real' exist as aspects of total reality. They are of an entirely different nature, so it's extremely important that people differentiate between them and give each its due. Because the two realities are of a different nature, any discussion of one in terms of the other is impossible, except through indirect means such as allegory and metaphor. Spiritual beliefs should be founded on spiritual experience, not on the assumption that specific material evidence must exist in the physical realm - the shaky ground bearing the edifice of religious mythology. The spiritual person should have no need to refute or distort the world of science. Likewise, the scientific person should have no need to refute or distort the world of the spirit. Ultimately the distinction between the spiritual person and the scientific person is illusory, since we are all of the same nature, but differ only in understanding. I think Einstein saw that.

At least, I think that's what I think.

They are there if you believe in them terry! As rede says, the distinction is illusory and there's plenty of spirit in Oz if you want to find it.

To be a bit serious though, I think that rede is on to something with:

" Spiritual beliefs should be founded on spiritual experience, not on the assumption that specific material evidence must exist in the physical realm - the shaky ground bearing the edifice of religious mythology"

People's beliefs are, or should be based on their own considered decisions, as otherwise they are just following dogma imposed on them by the rule makers and rule keepers. Being told what to think under threat of punishment for disobedience is not cool!

Ellis, I'm being dishonest. It's not just what I think I think. I accept it as true because it corresponds with my own experience and observations, and it's fine as long as I keep my mouth shut. As soon as I open my mouth it becomes dogma!

Interesting.

BTW, someone mentioned mentioned about the making of a house. But what make a house a home?

In my humble opinion,

First, a home is a place where people are free to wonder--that is, they are free to philosophize about what is possible.

Second, it is a place where we are free to experiment--that is, do all the science, including technology, necessary to success.

Third, it a place where we feel comfortable to practice the art of living, physically, mentally and spiritually, so that we have the confidence to move on.
===========================

Redewenur wrote:

"As soon as I open my mouth it becomes dogma!"

Not necessarily Rede. Depends how you say it. As Ellis said, "Being told what to think under threat of punishment for disobedience is not cool!" But hopefully we are all able to learn through others' experience as well as our own.

Yes I know, Terry, "not necessarily" - what you say is true - but when we have a firm conviction that's supported by repetitive experience (akin to the experiment of the scientist), even though there may be no contradiction in the 'objective' world, it's still classifiable as opinion. Sometimes we are tempted speak as though our views are incontrovertible truth rather than opinion. As you say, it depends how we say it. I suppose the important thing is to bear in mind that the experiences of others may be very different.

- more re: the above -

From 'Mathematical Infinity and Human Destiny' by Paul Budnik, a consultant in Silicon Valley. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois

"It may seem that any attempt to objectify spirituality can only lead to its destruction. This is true of attempts to contain it intellectually. It cannot be contained because it points to an unbounding range of possibilities.

Comment: However, see his final paragraph.

In the worlds of science and mathematics, there is nearly universal agreement about a vast body of knowledge that has enormous practical value. Of course, there is no agreement about how to extend mathematics and science, but there is agreement on the process that must be followed to bring new ideas into the widely accepted core."

Comment: The value of science as a product of the scientific method.

"In contrast, religion and spirituality is filled with arbitrary dogma and often violent disagreement. The power [that] technology is giving the human race makes this increasingly dangerous, and ultimately unacceptable. If it continues, the human species will almost certainly destroy itself."

Comment: These points have been thoroughly discussed in SAGG, where I think they are generally considered true.

"It is possible to develop a core spirituality that has the objectivity of science."

Comment: I agree with that assertion.

"Like mathematics, an objective spirituality must be open-ended, with the potential for unbounded creativity. That is where most approaches to spirituality, in our intellectually dominated age, run into trouble. Intellect is a very powerful, but very limited tool. It likes to constrain things in a universe that it can understand. That is one reason most mathematicians, including Godel himself, resisted creative implications of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem."

Comment:

From Wiki: 'Godel's second incompleteness theorem shows that it is not possible for any proof that Peano Arithmetic is consistent to be carried out within Peano arithmetic itself. This theorem shows that if the only acceptable proof procedures are those that can be formalized within arithmetic then Hilbert's call for a consistency proof cannot be answered. However, as Nagle and Newman (1958:96-97) explain, there is still room for a proof that cannot be formalized in arithmetic: "This imposing result of Godel's analysis should not be misunderstood: it does not exclude a meta-mathematical proof of the consistency of arithmetic. What it excludes is a proof of consistency that can be mirrored by the formal deductions of arithmetic. Meta-mathematical proofs of the consistency of arithmetic have, in fact, been constructed, notably by Gerhard Gentzen, a member of the Hilbert school, in 1936, and by others since then. ... But these meta-mathematical proofs cannot be represented within the arithmetical calculus'

In other words, Paul Budnik has inferred that the validity of the scientific understanding of total reality cannot be proven from within its own framework.

"The universe is the creative evolution of consciousness. This is beyond understanding and imagination - but we can understand the structure of this process."

Comment: Whatever else can be said of the universe, it cannot be denied that consciousness has emerged within it, and that consciousness has evolved. It is, for now at least, a mystery - but we can understand the physical processes with which it is associated.

"We can understand how to feed it, and what will kill it. We can begin to convert some spiritual intuitions into intellectual understanding. Doing so is essential [in order] to focus our spiritual motivations into a framework that will allow the continued evolution of consciousness - not to mention the survival of humanity."

Comment: There is a rationale that allows intellectual insight into spiritual intuitions. It's the same process that allows the development of ethical awareness.

Back up a bit...

Plenty of "Spirit" in Outback 'stralia? You better believe it! I once tried to hitch hike across the Outback. Fram Cairns to Perth. Boy, do you ever meet some colorful individuals. Between Mount Isa and Camooweal I got a lift from a Station Owner. An old guy, raspy voice from years of smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. We were in the REAL Outback, mile after mile of dead straight road, very few vehicles, really, nothing to look at, mate. All of a sudden the old guy says, "You ain't never SEEN scenery like this!" I'm Canadian, but to those Outback guys, anybody with a North American accent must be from Brooklyn, never left the Big City till they came here. I answered, "Well, I grew up in the Rocky Mountain foothills..." "YOU AIN'T NEVER SEEN SCENERY LIKE THIS!!!" he roars back. Three hundred and sixty degrees of dead flat horizon, spinifex and red dust. What scenery? But, hey, I didn't want to get DROPPED OFF in the middle of the Outback, "That's right, Sir, I ain't never seen anything like this!"

A few weeks later I was working on a Sheep Station outside of Fitzroy crossing, a place called Laurel Downs. It was being run by another old guy, a WWII Veteran and his two sons a few years older than I was. The mother had had enough of the Outback and had returned to Adelaide. We spoke with the neighbors by radio, that's how isolated we were. It took five days to drive, by Land Rover, around the perimeter of the place to mend fences. At the opposite corner of the property was an abandoned Ghost Town. They kept a few cattle there, it had a natural Bore, a spring, and there were trees arond the place. Cockatoos and Galahs everywhere. Apparently the settlers in the 19th Century had been "Emu Bobbers", Opal pickers. The place was going to be the "Next Coober Pedy", but the opals ran out. I did happen to find one Opal. I later gave it to my mother who had it set in a ring. We "de-knackered" young rams there, cut out their testicles. We went into the Crossing on three Saturday nights and each time I got into a fist fight. Aww, yes, PLENTY of Spirit in the Outback.

Howzat? Science? Oh, well, there's a Meteorite Impact Crater in WA. Goat Paddock.

That's a great experience, Wolfman. Unmaterialistic, and very spiritual. You're definitely someone who believes in living for a living!

Oh Wolfie---that WAS the scenery. There's just no mountains. And admit it, you'd never seen anything like it, had you?

Scary, spirited outback moments are the stuff of dinner party conversations here in Oz. My own personal favourite true story took place in a small town (hot and dusty, actually very hot and very dusty). Exhausted by the day's driving in the heat we crawled into the pub, ordered a beer and sat, politely, next to a typical outback character. We must have pleased him because he gave us a greeting and a huge grin, revealing a mouth full of teeth, everyone of which was made from a glittering opal. We must have looked quite impressed as he then removed them from his jaws so that we could admire them more closely!!

We did,smiling, as I am sure you would have too!!

OK -a bit of Science-UMMM- opals are the only organic gem- jewel- whatever (I think)? I know they contain water- at least I think they do.


REDE
re dogma.. dict def---"body of doctrines formally and authoratively stated by a church,"

thus you may be dogmatic but you can only quote dogma agreed to by other people, who are in authority and are the rule makers.

Thank you Ellis. So the rules say I can spout all the dogmatic tripe I like, and so long as I don't make an institution of it, it's not dogma!

Ellis. I actually took a trip to Broken Hill and hitch-hiked back to Bathust just so I could experience that open space. we had a gig in Bathurst two weekends in a row. To cut the story short suffice to say I made the gig just in time to hear the rest of the band finish the last set.

Fair enough, Ellis, you got me this time. I've seen some pretty peculiar things in my life, but I've NOT seen a bloke with Opals for teeth!!