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
Indeed, our everyday world presents intellectual challenges just as daunting as those of the cosmos and the quantum, and that is where 99 per cent of scientists focus their efforts. Even the smallest insect, with its intricate structure, is far more complex than either an atom or a star.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the complexity of everyday life and nature, suggesting that scientific exploration in our immediate environment is as challenging as studying the universe.
Martin Rees emphasizes that the scientific challenges we encounter in our daily world, such as understanding the complexities of small organisms, can be just as formidable as the grand challenges posed by the cosmos or quantum mechanics. He argues that even seemingly simple life forms, like insects, possess a complexity that merits scientific inquiry and attention, suggesting that scientists often concentrate their efforts on understanding the intricacies of the natural world surrounding us.
Themes
ScienceComplexityNatureInsectsUniverseChallenges
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the importance of studying biodiversity, this quote can illustrate the complexity of life forms.
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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