Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage - at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Science involves experimentation and a willingness to challenge established beliefs.
In this quote, Carl Sagan emphasizes that the essence of science lies in its foundation upon experimentation and the courage to question longstanding beliefs. He suggests that true scientific inquiry requires not only intellectual openness but also the bravery to confront and possibly discard conventional wisdom that may no longer hold true, thereby allowing for a deeper understanding of the universe.
Themes
ScienceExperimentCourageTruthWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a speech at a science fair to inspire young scientists.
More from Carl Sagan
All quotes →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.
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
You see, proteins, as I probably needn't tell you, are immensely complicated groupings of amino acids and certain other specialized compounds, arranged in intricate three-dimensional patterns that are as unstable as sunbeams on a cloudy day. It is this instability that is life, since it is forever changing its position in an effort to maintain its identity--in the manner of a long rod balanced on an acrobat's nose.
Isaac AsimovRead
The universe will finally become a ball of radiation, becoming more and more rarified and passing into longer and longer wave-lengths. The longest waves of radiation are Hertzian waves of the kind used in broadcasting. About every 1500 million years this ball of radio waves will double in diameter; and it will go on expanding in geometrical progression for ever. Perhaps then I may describe the end of the physical world as-one stupendous broadcast.
Arthur EddingtonRead
When I left NASA, I was looking at how you could use space technologies for developing countries' work.
Mae JemisonRead
Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.
Samuel JohnsonRead
In my relativity theory I set up a clock at every point in space, but in reality I find it difficult to provide even one clock in my room.
Albert EinsteinRead
Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.
Lord KelvinRead