As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways
Interpretation
Our lack of understanding of natural processes does not prevent us from recognizing and utilizing human inventions.
In this quote, Alfred Russel Wallace highlights the idea that just because we may not fully understand the natural laws governing the creation of materials or living things, it does not mean that we cannot appreciate or comprehend the innovations that arise from them, such as steamships and railways. This reflects a broader theme about the relationship between knowledge, ignorance, and the advancement of technology, emphasizing that human ingenuity can thrive even in the absence of complete understanding of nature.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture on the history of technology to illustrate how we advance despite gaps in knowledge.
In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.
If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations.
On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism
In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.
Almost any questions can be answered,cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that's he way to answer them - not by arguments around a table
The earth also is spherical, since it presses upon its center from every direction.
The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds.
When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.'
I don't walk into the lab in the morning thinking, 'I am a woman, and I will carry out an experiment that will conquer the world.' I am a scientist, not male or female. A scientist.
During the past three years spectacular progress has been made in increasing wheat, rice, and maize production in several of the most populous developing countries of southern Asia, where widespread famine appeared inevitable only five years ago
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.