Scientific facts are often described in textbooks as if they just sort of exist, like nickels someone picked up on the street. But science at the cutting edge, conducted by sharp minds probing deep into nature, is not about self-evident facts. It is about mystery and not knowing. It is about taking huge risks.
Interpretation
Science is about exploration and uncertainty rather than just known facts.
This quote emphasizes that true scientific inquiry goes beyond mere facts and established knowledge. It highlights the importance of curiosity, mystery, and the willingness to take risks in order to uncover new truths about the natural world, reflecting the dynamic and evolving nature of scientific understanding.
In practice
In a lecture about the nature of scientific discovery, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of curiosity.
As life forms, viruses are just inherently interesting. It's the microworld - this universe of life too small for us to see - but it's profoundly complicated, and immensely powerful. Ebola is like a beautiful and frightening predator. There is a wonder in the operations of nature that can't be denied, even when we're the losers.
There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection…It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country.
The tool that's most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.
There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years.
The way life manages information involves a logical structure that differs fundamentally from mere complex chemistry. Therefore chemistry alone will not explain life's origin, any more than a study of silicon, copper and plastic will explain how a computer can execute a program.
Exxon, one of the companies that has spent tens of millions of dollars denying climate change, denying any responsibility to deal with, taking government subsidies on a massive scale, now their ads are all about, 'Oh, we want a clean future. We're looking at clean energy and all that stuff.'
We didn't go to the moon to explore or because it was in our DNA or because we're Americans. We went because we were at war and we felt a threat.
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