There's branches of science which I don't understand; for example, physics. It could be said, I suppose, that I have faith that physicists understand it better than I do.
Interpretation
Understanding complex subjects sometimes requires faith in experts.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins reflects on the limitations of personal knowledge in the face of specialized fields like physics. He acknowledges his lack of understanding in certain scientific areas but expresses trust in the abilities and expertise of physicists to grasp what he cannot.
In practice
In a discussion about scientific literacy, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of trusting experts.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
I try to show the public that chemistry, biology, physics, astrophysics is life. It is not some separate subject that you have to be pulled into a corner to be taught about.
Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought.
Just one living cell in the human body is, more complex than New York City.
It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer
It is an art of no little importance to administer medicines properly: but, it is an art of much greater and more difficult acquisition to know when to suspend or altogether to omit them.
After that cancellation [of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, after $2 billion had been spent on it], we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper. ... The Cold War is over. You can't simply say "Russia!" to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, "How much?" We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives.
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