Science surpasses the old miracles of mythology.
Interpretation
Science offers explanations and discoveries that exceed the myths of ancient stories.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes that the advancements and explanations provided by science have outstripped the fantastical and often unfounded stories found in mythology. While myths served to explain the world in ancient times, modern science has provided a more accurate and profound understanding of reality, thus rewriting our comprehension of the universe and its workings.
In practice
In a lecture about the progression of human knowledge, you could incorporate this quote to highlight the importance of scientific understanding.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
If you think about the impact of climate change, [it should be how] a doctor would deal with the problem. A scientific hypothesis is tested to absolute destruction, but medicine can't wait. If a doctor sees a child with a fever, he can't wait for [endless] tests. He has to act on what is there. The risk of delay is so enormous that we can't wait until we are absolutely sure the patient is dying.
If there's one operation for a disease, you know it works. If there are 15 operations, you know that none of them work.
Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past.
Known as the biosphere to scientists and as the creation to theologians, all of life together consists of a membrane around earth so thin that it cannot be seen edgewise from a satellite yet so prodigiously diverse that only a tiny fraction of species have been discovered and named.
What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth.
Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles.
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