It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of scientific understanding over popular opinion.
Isaac Asimov articulates a skepticism towards the opinions of those who lack scientific training, suggesting that while scientists may be fallible, the general public is often more likely to be incorrect in their assertions. This reflects a deep trust in the scientific method and its ability to yield truth, despite the imperfections of individual scientists.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of scientific literacy in society.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
My interest in science started quite early. My earliest school recollection, from age 6, is actually of mathematics, realizing that one could fill an entire page with digits and never come to the largest possible number, so I saw what was meant by infinity.
Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: It gives them something to do.
The struggle against poverty in the world and the challenge of cutting wealthy country emissions all has a single, very simple solution... Here it is: Put a price on carbon.
Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description, as science writers, but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers, you see, but we're also realists, of a sort.
The edifice of science not only requires material, but also a plan. Without the material, the plan alone is but a castle in the air-a mere possibility; whilst the material without a plan is but useless matter.
The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds in the direction of large molecules.
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