It has been a privilege to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to see how it might help mankind in more practical ways.
Paul NurseRead
Better understanding of the natural world not only enhances all of us as human beings, but can also be harnessed for the better good, leading to improved health and quality of life.
Interpretation
Improving our understanding of nature benefits humanity and enhances our lives.
This quote emphasizes the importance of understanding the natural world and how such knowledge can contribute to the betterment of human life. By seeking to comprehend nature deeply, we not only enrich our existence but also leverage this understanding to improve health outcomes and overall quality of life for everyone.
In practice
In a speech about environmental sustainability, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of nature education.
There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name applied science. There are sciences and the applications of science, bound together as the fruit of the tree which bears it.
Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health.
Science operates in the natural, not the supernatural. In fact, I go so far as to state that there is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal.
At no period of [Michael Faraday's] unmatched career was he interested in utility. He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles. As far as he cared, the question of utility was never raised. Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory.
Some solutions are relatively simple and would provide economic benefits: implementing measures to conserve energy, putting a price on carbon through taxes and cap-and-trade and shifting from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources.
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