Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.
Francois RabelaisRead
Science without conscience is the death of the soul.
Interpretation
The pursuit of scientific knowledge must be governed by moral considerations to prevent harm to humanity.
Francois Rabelais suggests that scientific advances without ethical oversight can lead to detrimental consequences for individuals and society. This quote emphasizes the importance of blending intellectual pursuit with a sense of responsibility and compassion, highlighting that the potential for innovation can become destructive when divorced from humanity's moral compass.
In practice
During a seminar on bioethics, this quote can serve to highlight the importance of moral responsibility in scientific research.
Science without conscience is the soul's perdition.
If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.
We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.
Bring down the curtain, the farce is over
There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation.
If you want to avoid seeing an idiot, break the mirror.
The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.
This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right.
As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control.
At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion.
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As you kind of get over the anxiety about [science and evolution], it actually adds to your sense of awe about this amazing universe that we live in, it doesn't subtract from it at all.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.