The scientists who attack mainstream religion, rather than striving for peaceful coexistence with it, damage science, and also weaken the fight against fundamentalism.
Martin ReesRead
Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree. No astronomer could believe this.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote challenges the perception that humans are the ultimate outcome of evolution, highlighting our relative position in the vast timeline of life.
Martin Rees suggests that while we have learned about the immense timescales involved in evolution since Darwin, many still incorrectly view humanity as the end goal of this process. He emphasizes that a true understanding of evolution recognizes our place as one species among many, without any inherent superiority, which aligns with the views of astronomers who understand the expansive complexities of the universe and life within it.
Themes
EvolutionHumansPhilosophyScienceDarwin
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture discussing humanity's place in the universe, this quote can be used to encourage a deeper understanding of evolution.
More from Martin Rees
All quotes →Let me say that I don't see any conflict between science and religion. I go to church as many other scientists do. I share with most religious people a sense of mystery and wonder at the universe and I want to participate in religious ritual and practices because they're something that all humans can share.
Martin ReesRead
It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics.
Martin ReesRead
In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it.
Martin ReesRead
Collective human actions are transforming, even ravaging, the biosphere - perhaps irreversibly - through global warming and loss of biodiversity.
Martin ReesRead
It is astonishing that human brains, which evolved to cope with the everyday world, have been able to grasp the counterintuitive mysteries of the cosmos and the quantum.
Martin ReesRead
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