Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.
Interpretation
The vastness of the universe suggests that if we are the only sentient beings, it undermines its significance.
This quote by Carl Sagan reflects on the enormity of the universe and invokes a sense of curiosity about our existence within it. Sagan suggests that the universe's vastness is not just a backdrop for our lives but a crucial aspect of our understanding of existence, urging us to ponder the implications of being possibly alone in such an expansive realm.
In practice
This quote can be used to spark discussions about extraterrestrial life during a science class.
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.
Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
A junky runs on junk time. When the junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junky time to start. A sick junky has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.
Cyborg writing must not be about the Fall, the imagination of a once-upon-a-time wholeness before language, before writing, before Man. Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other...
Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.
The significance which is in unity is an eternal wonder.
To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.
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