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.
Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion
Jesus Christ out-socialists the socialists. He says that in His Kingdom he that is greatest shall be the servant of all. The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples' feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men but count everything in the estimate of God.
The Kingdom of God is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven.
The believer in magic and miracles reflects on how to impose a law on nature--: and, in brief, the religious cult is the outcome of this reflection.
The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.
There is the strange power we have of changing facts by the force of the imagination.
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