Modern science should indeed arouse in all of us a humility before the immensity of the unexplored and a tolerance for crazy hypotheses.
Interpretation
Science teaches us to be humble about what we don't know and to accept unconventional ideas.
In this quote, Martin Gardner suggests that the vastness of scientific knowledge should inspire humility in us, recognizing how much remains unexplored. He also emphasizes the importance of remaining open-minded towards unconventional ideas or theories, encouraging curiosity and tolerance in our pursuit of understanding the universe.
In practice
This quote would be perfect for a presentation on the importance of scientific inquiry.
Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.
Debunking bad science should be constant obligation of the science community, even if it takes time away from serious research or seems to be a losing battle. One takes comfort from the fact there is no Gresham's laws in science. In the long run, good science drives out bad.
If all sentient beings in the universe disappeared, there would remain a sense in which mathematical objects and theorems would continue to exist even though there would be no one around to write or talk about them. Huge prime numbers would continue to be prime, even if no one had proved them prime.
In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory.
There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and ignorance, for as Voltaire once said: "Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities."
A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?
Any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the "anticipation of Nature," that is, by the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with; and, not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long run.
It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.
When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, that is the heart of science.
Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution. The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems fall to a large extent within their jurisdiction.
If your payloads cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they actually cost more than the launch. It puts a lot of pressure on the launch vehicle not to change, to be very stable. Reliability becomes much more important than the cost. It's hard to get off of that equilibrium.
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
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