To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand.
Interpretation
Galileo emphasizes the absurdity of denying observable evidence in the face of scientific inquiry.
In this quote, Galileo critiques the expectation placed on scholars to reject their own empirical observations to conform to established beliefs. He argues that true understanding comes from accepting what can be observed and known rather than adhering to dogma, highlighting the conflict between scientific evidence and traditional authority.
In practice
This quote can be used in a classroom setting to inspire students to trust their own observations in scientific experiments.
It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.
We must say that there are as many squares as there are numbers.
Science proceeds more by what it has learned to ignore than what it takes into account.
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!
We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldnt want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.
Some evolutionists will protest that we are caricaturing their view of adaptation. After all, do they not admit genetic drift, allometry, and a variety of reasons for nonadaptive evolution?
String theory is not the only theory that can accommodate extra dimensions, but it certainly is the one that really demands and requires it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.