I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.
Interpretation
Galileo emphasizes the importance of empirical evidence over religious or scriptural beliefs in understanding nature.
In this quote, Galileo Galilei advocates for a scientific approach to understanding the natural world, suggesting that discussions about natural phenomena should start with direct observation and experimentation rather than relying on religious texts. This reflects the foundational principles of the scientific method, where evidence and experimentation lead to knowledge and understanding, challenging the dominant views of previously established authority.
In practice
In a lecture about the scientific method, you might say, 'As Galileo once stated, we must begin our discussions about nature with observations before any scripture.'
It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.
We must say that there are as many squares as there are numbers.
Science proceeds more by what it has learned to ignore than what it takes into account.
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!
Strange as it may sound, the power of mathematics rests on its evasion of all unnecessary thought and on its wonderful saving of mental operations.
Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan.
The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of re recognition, for old memories and old connection.
Researchers have found that the brain definitely sends nerves directly to organs of the immune system and not just to the heart and the lower gut. In that way, too, the brain is influencing the body.
The first possibility of rural cleanliness lies in water supply.
We need to look at NASA, not as a handout, but as an investment.
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