Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
Religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. ... near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of religious beliefs and their resilience against rational scrutiny.
Carl Sagan's insight reveals the tension between religious doctrines and rationality, suggesting that faith often stands firm against empirical challenge. He argues that religions either avoid falsifiable claims or adapt swiftly when proven wrong, highlighting an intrinsic aspect of spirituality that resists logical examination.
In practice
In a philosophical debate about the validity of religious beliefs.
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.
I don't think anyone is qualified to answer questions of eternal fate definitively, much less pinpoint it to a given day.
Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.
The possible ranks higher than the actual.
If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves.
All men contain several men inside them, and most of us bounce from one self to another without ever knowing who we are.
It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges; and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
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