I am always struck by the fact that human awareness of our place in nature, like so much of modern science, began with the Industrial Revolution.
The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at all mean, as it is sometimes claimed to mean, a search for mastery over nature.
In general, science journalism concerns itself with what has been published in a handful of peer-reviewed journals - Nature, Cell, The New England Journal of Medicine - which set the agenda.
Moreover, the concern of some that moving DNA among species would breach customary breeding barriers and have profound effects on natural evolutionary processes has substantially disappeared as the science revealed that such exchanges occur in nature...
Modem science, then, maintains on the one hand that nature, both organic and inorganic, strives towards a state of order and that man's actions are governed by the same tendency.
It's the default premise in science: If you observe something in nature only once, you assume that what you've seen is typical. That's because 'typical' is just another way of saying 'most probable.'
'Entity' is not about science. The process behind it may dictate the nature of the piece, but it's not like a dance about Einstein where I'm trying to convert his ideas into movement and communicate that to an audience.
It seems to me that the Swedish Academy of Science may be qualifying for the Nobel Peace Prize. It recognises no nationality; it discourages unworthy national feeling and prejudice.
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.
When you're looking that far out, you're giving people their place in the universe, it touches people. Science is often visual, so it doesn't need translation. It's like poetry, it touches you.
I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing. I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.
The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.
To overturn orthodoxy is no easier in science than in philosophy, religion, economics, or any of the other disciplines through which we try to comprehend the world and the society in which we live.
In requiring this candor and simplicity of mind in those who would investigate the truth of our religion, Christianity demands nothing more than is readily conceded to every branch of human science.
The national security state has many unfair and cruel weapons in its arsenal, but that of junk science is one which can be fought and perhaps defeated.
I'm not much interested in extrapolating science and technology; I merely use extrapolation as a means of putting people into new quandaries which produce colorful pressures and conflicts.
When all is said and done, science actually takes hard work and a willingness to sometimes find out that your most cherished hypothesis is wrong.
All of science to me, everything that we have learned, is important to the extent that it brings us to our senses.
The science linking the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather to the climate crisis has matured tremendously in the last couple of years.
Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality.
