Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half.
Arthur KornbergRead
As in biomedical science, pioneering industrial inventions have not been mothered by necessity. Rather, inventions for which there was no commercial use only later became the commercial airplanes, xerography and lasers on which modern society depends.
Interpretation
Innovation often arises without immediate necessity, leading to breakthroughs that become essential in society.
Arthur Kornberg emphasizes that significant industrial inventions frequently emerge from creativity rather than pressing needs. Technologies like commercial airplanes, xerography, and lasers initially did not serve a clear purpose but eventually became crucial components of modern society, showcasing how visionary ideas can transform into indispensable tools over time.
In practice
During a science conference, this quote can be used to inspire inventors and entrepreneurs about the importance of creativity.
The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.
Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.
For me, the level at which natural selection causes the phenomenon of adaptation is the level of the replicator - the gene.
The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.
The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
As was predicted at the beginning of the Human Genome Project, getting the sequence will be the easy part as only technical issues are involved. The hard part will be finding out what it means, because this poses intellectual problems of how to understand the participation of the genes in the functions of living cells.
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