Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize that we were alone?
Interpretation
This quote ponders the nature of existence and our perception of solitude in the universe.
Carl Sagan's quote illustrates the profound idea of human isolation in the cosmos. It suggests that if the stars we see were to vanish, we would remain unaware of our solitude for countless generations, highlighting our complacency and the limited scope of human awareness regarding our place in the universe.
In practice
In a discussion on human existence, one might say this quote to emphasize our place in the universe.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
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.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
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.
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.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on their power conceived by the Framers . . . . Such recognition will not come from a technical understanding of the organs of government, or the new forms of wealth they administer. It requires something different, something deeper-a personal confrontation with the wellsprings of our society.
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.
Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.
All the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and...however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties.
I took the world into me, rearranged it, and sent it back out as a question: "Do you like me?
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