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.
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
The dangers that face the world can, every one of them, be traced back to science. The salvations that may save the world will, every one of them, be traced back to science.
It seems sensible to discard all hope of observing hitherto unobservable quantities, such as the position and period of the electron... Instead it seems more reasonable to try to establish a theoretical quantum mechanics, analogous to classical mechanics, but in which only relations between observable quantities occur.
At the sight of a single bone, of a single piece of bone, I recognize and reconstruct the portion of the whole from which it would have been taken. The whole being to which this fragment belonged appears in my mind's eye.
We know so much about planets and the universe and small particles and we do not know anything about the inner state of our own bodies, we do not know about this microcosm we have inside our skin.
It may be that our cosmic curiosity... is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.
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