Even though I knew pretty early that I was going to be a scientist, it wasn't the science that interested me in science fiction; it was the vision of future societies that, for better or worse, would be radically different from our own.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that the allure of science fiction lies in its exploration of future societies rather than just scientific concepts.
In this quote, Steven Weinberg emphasizes that although he had a strong inclination towards becoming a scientist, it was not merely the scientific principles that captivated him in science fiction. Instead, it was the imaginative portrayal of future societies, with their potential for dramatic change, that intrigued him. This highlights the role of science fiction as a medium for considering social evolution and the human condition in radically different contexts.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of science fiction on technological advancements.
It was one time when people thought the value of the fine structure constant was important. Now of course it's still important, of course, as a practical matter,but we now know that the value it has is a function, that in any fundamental theory you derive the fine structure constant as a function of all sorts of mass ratios and so on and it's not really that fundamental.
Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
[Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just... you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?
About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!
An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.
Supervised learning works so well when you have the right data set, but ultimately unsupervised learning is going to be a really important component in building really intelligent systems - if you look at how humans learn, it's almost entirely unsupervised.
In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun.
Universe consists of frozen light.
I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.
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