One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships.
Interpretation
The idea that UFOs are spaceships from other planets is no longer credible.
In this quote, Arthur C. Clarke suggests that the theory of UFOs originating from distant planets lacks serious consideration among scientists. This reflects a broader skepticism towards claims that lack empirical evidence and urges a critical approach to understanding phenomena that captivate the imagination.
In practice
In a science class discussing the scientific method, this quote can highlight the importance of evidence in forming theories.
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
The recent developments in cosmology strongly suggest that the universe may be the ultimate free lunch.
Mathematics is the key and door to the sciences.
No planet is more earth-like than Earth itself, so if life really does pop up readily in earth-like conditions, then surely it should have arisen many times right here on our home planet? And how do we know it didn't? The truth is, nobody has looked.
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism... We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitute the life, usefulness, and supreme value of mathematical science.
What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.