Science is implausible to untutored human common sense, but that in no way casts doubt on the correctness of well-established scientific findings. Feelings of transcendence are simply that—feelings—and, as such, have no capacity to reveal truths ...
Can Christian preaching expect modern man to accept the mythical view of the world as true? To do so would be both senseless and impossible. It would be senseless, because there is nothing specifically Christian in the mythical view of the world as s...
When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also limited its spontaneity. And it became much more predictable, almost scientific. What had once been the most surprising became the most manipulated.
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
The Burgess Shale is not unique, but for those who study evolution and fossils it has become something of an icon. It provides a reference point and a benchmark, a point of common discussion and an issue of universal scientific interest.
The Scientific Revolution, that remarkable transformation of European thought that occurred between approximately 1550 and 1700, brought with it an ascendancy of the experimental method and the refusal to believe any explanation of natural phenomena ...
What I'm pushing for is an economic discipline that will be closer to other social sciences; in particular, we should be more pragmatic about the methods that we are using instead of pretending that we have our own scientific apparatus with very soph...
Only flies have true halteres. In fact, the scientific term for flies, 'diptera,' means 'two wings.' Most insects, including bees, have two pairs of wings for a total of four. In flies, the hindwing pairs have been transformed through evolution into ...
The United States is a leader across a broad range of scientific disciplines. Our technological prowess is part of our greatness as a nation. Sadly, among the rich industrialized nations, we also lead by a substantial margin in the rate of poverty am...
Let us hope that Lysenko's success in Russia will serve for many generations to come as another reminder to the world of how quickly and easily a science can be corrupted when ignorant political leaders deem themselves competent to arbitrate scientif...
Through our scientific and technological genius we've made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers—or we will all perish togethe...
People think I appear on television to promote my image. That's not fair. I hate filming. I turned down 'Strictly Come Dancing.' But television is a wonderful opportunity to promote scientific ideas. 'Super Doctors' is a very thoughtful piece.
We don’t yet have a body of scientific knowledge about evil to be called a facet of psychology. Therefore, religious reasoning for actions will always be at the discretion of the psychologist, thus making them the judge and jury over what is delusi...
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out.
All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of ...
Many philosophers say it's impossible to explain our conscious experience in scientific, biological terms at all. But that's not exactly true. Scientists have explained why we have certain experiences and not others. It's just that they haven't expla...
We should reserve the notion of 'morality' for the ways in which we can affect one another's experience for better or worse. Some people use the term 'morality' differently, of course, but I think we have a scientific responsibility to focus the conv...
I have the idea that running shoes are based on a kind of cult idea - that our feet are flawed and we need shoes to correct those flaws. The shoe companies are in the business of selling shoes. But there's no evidence from running shoe manufacturers ...
I don't think that faith, whatever you're being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don't want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There's so much mystery. There's so much awe.
If you look at the purported dangers of salt or fat, there is no consensus of support in scientific literature. So I would ask first: 'Is it possible to have an informed government that actually follows the science?' From what I've seen, it's not lik...
It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technolo...
