Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
How lucky we are to live in this time / the first moment in human history / when we are in fact visiting other worlds
Interpretation
We live in a remarkable era where exploring beyond our planet is a reality.
Carl Sagan's quote emphasizes the extraordinary privilege of living in a time when humanity has the capability to explore outer space. It reflects a sense of wonder and gratitude for scientific advancements that allow us to visit and study other worlds, highlighting the significance of exploration and the potential for discovery that defines our current era.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of space exploration, you might use this quote to emphasize our achievements.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production.
The basic scientific conclusions on climate change are very robust and for good reason. The greenhouse effect is simple science: greenhouse gases trap heat, and humans are emitting ever more greenhouse gases.
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we 'keep' our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This 'solution', I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.
What a deep faith in the rationality of the structure of the world and what a longing to understand even a small glimpse of the reason revealed in the world there must have been in Kepler and Newton to enable them to unravel the mechanism of the heavens in long years of lonely work!
An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.
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