E pur si muove. "Albeit It does move". (That's what Galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun.)
Interpretation
Galileo affirmed the truth of his scientific beliefs despite external pressure to deny them.
This quote, attributed to Galileo Galilei, represents the resilience of scientific truth against oppression and the courage to uphold one's beliefs in the face of adversity. After being forced to renounce his heliocentric views during the Inquisition, Galileo's whispered declaration emphasizes that the earth indeed moves, symbolizing the triumph of reason and evidence over dogma and fear.
In practice
During a science seminar discussing the importance of standing by one's findings despite criticism.
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!
I'm absolutely positive about human survival. We will continue to develop our civilisation and expand not just on Earth, but also across the solar system, the galaxy, even the entire universe.
We do not draw conclusions with our eyes, but with our reasoning powers, and if the whole of the rest of living nature proclaims with one accord from all sides the evolution of the world of organisms, we cannot assume that the process stopped short of Man. But it follows also that the factors which brought about the development of Man from his Simian ancestry must be the same as those which have brought about the whole of evolution.
I try to show the public that chemistry, biology, physics, astrophysics is life. It is not some separate subject that you have to be pulled into a corner to be taught about.
My whole interest is, how do you use evolution as an innovation engine? How does evolution solve new problems that life faces? And to have a system that can create a whole new chemical bond that biology hasn't done before, to me, demonstrates the power of nature to innovate.
But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.
You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.
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