For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.
John PolanyiRead
When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves.
Interpretation
Fear of science reflects a deeper fear of our own potential and understanding.
This quote suggests that when we experience apprehension or fear towards science, it is not merely the subject of science itself that we are afraid of; rather, it is an indication of our own insecurities and unwillingness to confront our own capabilities and complexities as human beings. Science represents a pursuit of knowledge that can illuminate our understanding of the world and ourselves, and fearing it may be a reflection of an internal struggle with change and responsibility.
In practice
During a keynote speech at a science fair where students showcase their projects.
For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.
Our assessment of socio-economic worth is largely a sham. We scientists should not lend ourselves to it - though we routinely do. We should, instead, insist on applying the criterion of quality.
If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people's experience.
It is this, at its most basic, that makes science a humane pursuit; it acknowledges the commonality of people's experience.
Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics.
If the code does indeed have some logical foundation then it is legitimate to consider all the evidence, both good and bad, in any attempt to deduce it.
My interest in science started quite early. My earliest school recollection, from age 6, is actually of mathematics, realizing that one could fill an entire page with digits and never come to the largest possible number, so I saw what was meant by infinity.
We all know that UFOs are real. All we need to ask is where do they come from, and what do they want?
The way life manages information involves a logical structure that differs fundamentally from mere complex chemistry. Therefore chemistry alone will not explain life's origin, any more than a study of silicon, copper and plastic will explain how a computer can execute a program.
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
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