Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing and accepting the universe as it truly is, without letting our emotions distort our understanding.
Carl Sagan encourages us to confront the universe with courage and openness, advocating for a mindset that seeks to understand reality based on empirical explorations rather than preconceived emotional biases. This perspective is essential for true knowledge and growth, calling us to embrace the truth of our discoveries, no matter how challenging or perplexing they may be.
In practice
In a lecture about scientific exploration and honesty.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.
True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.
No organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. .. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.
They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurerance of our identities? I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was so egotist...he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only inseparatable love...poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point.
The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.
I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.
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