Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Science often leads us to learn about the vast unknown, teaching us humility in the process.
Carl Sagan emphasizes that the journey of scientific discovery is filled with uncertainties, requiring explorers to confront the unknown. This path, while enriching, also reveals the limits of our understanding, making humility an essential lesson for those engaged in scientific inquiry, even as some may prefer the safety of familiarity over the challenges of exploration.
Themes
ScienceHumilityDiscoveryExplorationUnknown
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared in a science class to inspire students about the nature of scientific inquiry.
More from Carl Sagan
All quotes βIn more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
Carl SaganRead
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
Carl SaganRead
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.
Carl SaganRead
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.
Carl SaganRead
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Carl SaganRead
Similar quotes
Science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.
Albert EinsteinRead
The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket.
Albert EinsteinRead
If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
Niels BohrRead
Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.
Lord KelvinRead
No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power. ... The time has come to consider how we might bring about a separation, as complete as possible, between Science and Government in all countries. I call this the disestablishment of science, in the same sense in which the churches have been disestablished and have become independent of the state.
Jacob BronowskiRead
I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do.
Linus TorvaldsRead