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The world today is made, it is powered by science; and for any man to abdicate an interest in science is to walk with open eyes towards slavery.
Jacob Bronowski
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Engaging with science is essential for freedom and empowerment in modern society.

In this quote, Jacob Bronowski emphasizes the critical role that science plays in shaping the world and empowering individuals. He warns that neglecting science leads to ignorance, which can result in a lack of autonomy and control over one’s life, likening such neglect to a form of slavery. By encouraging an active interest in scientific understanding, Bronowski advocates for intellectual engagement as a means of liberation and personal agency.

Themes

ScienceFreedomKnowledgeIntellectEmpowerment

In practice

Example use cases

In a classroom discussing the importance of science education.

More from Jacob Bronowski

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.
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There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.
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To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and in every known society practices both together.
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A man becomes creative, whether he is an artist or scientist, when he finds a new unity in the variety of nature. He does so by finding a likeness between things which were not thought alike before.
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The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.
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The basis for poetry and scientific discovery is the ability to comprehend the unlike in the like and the like in the unlike.
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