The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of scientific integrity and the rejection of unverified beliefs.
H. L. Mencken argues that science must stand firm against religious influence and other forms of superstition. By yielding even a little to theological concepts, scientists compromise their integrity, equating such concessions to accepting illogical beliefs, like the transformation of a horse-hair into a snake. This highlights the need for skepticism and critical thinking in the pursuit of knowledge.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of scientific inquiry, this quote can reinforce the need to separate science from religious dogma.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
If you take 100 breast-cancer samples, 100 types of cancer have 100 different hallmarks of mutated genes. You could be nihilistic and say, 'Oh, God, we'll never be able to tackle this!' But there are deep, systematic, organizational principles at work in all that diversity.
But nature did not deem it her business to make the discovery of her laws easy for us.
The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.
I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.
A great part of its theories derives an additional charm from the peculiarity that important propositions, with the impress of simplicity on them, are often easily discovered by induction, and yet are of so profound a character that we cannot find the demonstrations till after many vain attempts; and even then, when we do succeed, it is often by some tedious and artificial process, while the simple methods may long remain concealed.
The math of quantum mechanics and the math of general relativity, when they confront one another, they are ferocious antagonists and the equations don't work.
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