The scientists who attack mainstream religion, rather than striving for peaceful coexistence with it, damage science, and also weaken the fight against fundamentalism.
Martin ReesRead
It is foolish to claim, as some do, that emigration into space offers a long-term escape from Earth's problems. Nowhere in our solar system offers an environment even as clement as the Antarctic or the top of Everest.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The idea of escaping Earth’s problems by moving to space is naïve, as no other place offers a better living environment.
This quote highlights the folly of believing that emigration to space can serve as a viable solution to the issues we face on Earth. Martin Rees argues that, despite the challenges we encounter here, no location within our solar system is as hospitable as certain extreme environments on Earth, such as the Antarctic or the summit of Mount Everest, emphasizing the need to solve our terrestrial problems rather than seeking distant alternatives.
Themes
EmigrationSpaceEarthProblemsEnvironment
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture about climate change, one might quote this to emphasize the need for Earth-focused solutions.
More from Martin Rees
All quotes →Let me say that I don't see any conflict between science and religion. I go to church as many other scientists do. I share with most religious people a sense of mystery and wonder at the universe and I want to participate in religious ritual and practices because they're something that all humans can share.
Martin ReesRead
It's becoming clear that in a sense the cosmos provides the only laboratory where sufficiently extreme conditions are ever achieved to test new ideas on particle physics. The energies in the Big Bang were far higher than we can ever achieve on Earth. So by looking at evidence for the Big Bang, and by studying things like neutron stars, we are in effect learning something about fundamental physics.
Martin ReesRead
In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it.
Martin ReesRead
Collective human actions are transforming, even ravaging, the biosphere - perhaps irreversibly - through global warming and loss of biodiversity.
Martin ReesRead
It is astonishing that human brains, which evolved to cope with the everyday world, have been able to grasp the counterintuitive mysteries of the cosmos and the quantum.
Martin ReesRead
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