Such is the economy of nature," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "that no instance can be produced, of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken." When, as President, he dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to the Northwest, Jefferson hoped that they would come upon live mastodons roaming the region.
Elizabeth KolbertString theory is an attempt at a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating string.
Edward WittenTags: science nature naturalism physics materialism laws-of-nature description gravity big-bang string-theory particle-physics origin-of-the-universe origin-of-universe elementary-particles institute-for-advanced-study m-theory
Cecile was teaching in Berkeley and I was [at Livermore]. He probably had, could have had, some influence on Teller, [for] Teller was quite generous in allowing me one whole semester off to be at Berkeley to work on something and also a semester off at the Institute for Advanced Study. Then I won the Gravity Research Foundation first prize.
Bryce S. DeWittTags: science physics berkeley theoretical-physics institute-for-advanced-study cal-berkeley edward-teller
Today's science is tomorrow's technology.
Edward TellerTags: science future technology futurism practical-applications applications-of-science
Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy.
Edward TellerTags: science future technology discovery fission futurism scientific-discovery electronics james-watt electrons practical-applications applications-of-science nuclear-energy
The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist’s job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist’s job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives.
Edward TellerTags: science politics progress humanity people nature responsibility laws-of-nature american job scientist atomic-bomb nuke hydrogen-bomb nuclear-energy representatives
Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought.
Edward TellerTags: science nature thought logic simplicity math mathematics human-thought
I received comments on how extraordinary it was that I could keep up speaking for exactly 45 minutes. Indeed, in an age of soundbites lasting some seconds and of quick quotes in the news, all those minutes do seem like an eternity, easy to get lost in. Yet, wait a moment. Television is not the only place where speeches are given. Some hundred thousand teachers teach every day. They all speak 45 minutes, more times a day. They have been doing this for years. Every teacher knows exactly when the time will be over and that by then his speech will need to come to a natural end. It is this tension that determines the success of a lesson. It is a sign of the times that we forget these daily achievements in education. A million students daily attend several ‘live’ lectures and this in secondary education alone. These are high ratings!
Robbert DijkgraafTags: science success education learning teachers television teaching speeches institute-for-advanced-study sting-theory string-theorists
Who gave the decisive deathblow to the argument from design on the basis of biological complexity? Both philosophers and biologists are divided on this point (Oppy 1996; Dawkins 1986; Sober 2008). Some have claimed that the biological design argument did not falter until Darwin provided a proper naturalistic explanation for adaptive complexity; others maintain that David Hume had already shattered the argument to pieces by sheer logical force several decades earlier, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume 2007 [1779]). Elliott Sober has been among the philosophers who maintain that, as Hume was not in a position to offer a serious alternative explanation of adaptive complexity, it is hardly surprising that 'intelligent people strongly favored the design hypothesis' (Sober 2000, 36). In his most recent book, however, Sober (2008) carefully develops what he thinks is the most charitable reconstruction of the design argument, and proceeds to show why it is defective for intrinsic reasons (for earlier version of this argument, see Sober 1999, 2002). Sober argues that the design argument can be rejected even without the need to consider alternative explanations for adaptive complexity (Sober 2008, 126): 'To see why the design argument is defective, there is no need to have a view as to whether Darwin’s theory of evolution is true' (Sober 2008, 154).
Maarten BoudryTags: science biology atheism complexity evolution charles-darwin darwin richard-dawkins dawkins david-hume biological-complexity graham-oppy theory-of-evolution argument-for-atheism argument-from-design-refuted atheistic-argument deathblow design-argument-refuted elliott-sober intelligent-design-refuted
[On famous Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr]
[Niels] Bohr's sort of humor, use of parables and stories, tolerance, dependence on family, feelings of indebtedness, obligation, and guilt, and his sense of responsibility for science, community, and, ultimately, humankind in general, are common traits of the Jewish intellectual. So too is a well-fortified atheism. Bohr ended with no religious belief and a dislike of all religions that claimed to base their teachings on revelations.
Tags: humor science family stories atheism atheist responsibility teaching tolerance revelation community intellectual jewish humankind jew parables niels-bohr dislike-of-religion obligation-guilt
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