Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Alan AldaRead
It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.
Interpretation
Science is a human endeavor that involves emotions and sacrifices, not just intellect.
Alan Alda's quote emphasizes the humanity behind scientific progress, reminding us that researchers and scientists are not only intellectual beings but also individuals who face challenges and make sacrifices. This perspective sheds light on the emotional and social dimensions of scientific work, recognizing the personal investments and the costs associated with the pursuit of knowledge.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students pursuing careers in science.
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.
If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity.
I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.
Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a home-grown phenomenon of American sociocultural history-a splinter movement ... who believe that every word in the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean.
There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.
Creativity is essential to particle physics, cosmology, and to mathematics, and to other fields of science, just as it is to its more widely acknowledged beneficiaries - the arts and humanities.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
The best simulator for spacewalking is underwater - it allows full visuals and body movement in 3D. Virtual reality is good, too, and has some advantages, like full Station simulation, not just part. Like all simulators, they have parts that are wrong and misleading: an important thing to remember when preparing for reality.
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