Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Interpretation
Science seeks understanding rather than absolute truth, acknowledging its limitations.
In this quote, Isaac Asimov emphasizes that science is a method of inquiry that aims to explore and understand the universe, but it does not claim to provide ultimate truths. He points out that scientific processes are bound by their own limitations and that not all phenomena may be fully explainable or accessible to scientific examination, highlighting the evolving nature of scientific understanding.
In practice
In a science class discussion about the nature of scientific theories.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values, there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally, and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing
Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.
Science is a collaborative enterprise, spanning the generations. When it permits us to see the far side of some new horizon, we remember those who prepared the way - seeing for them also.
We should've asked China to be a portion of the space station. We should've worked out ways that we can... just give away the technology that we have that puts things up into space, with cooperation up above the atmosphere that's needed to help each other.
Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a 'crank.'
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.
The dimmed outlines of phenomenal things all merge into one another unless we put on the focusing-glass of theory, and screw it up sometimes to one pitch of definition and sometimes to another, so as to see down into different depths through the great millstone of the world.
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