Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.
Interpretation
Humanity is a result of a long evolutionary process and continues to evolve.
In this quote, Carl Sagan emphasizes the continuous nature of evolution and challenges the notion that humans represent the peak of biological development. He urges us to recognize our place as part of an ongoing evolutionary journey, rather than as a final destination in the grand narrative of life.
In practice
In a lecture about human evolution.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
A poetess who had died young of cancer had said in one of her poems that for her, on sleepless nights, 'the night offers toads and black dogs and corpses of the drowned.
Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.
For an adult, the world is constantly trying to clamp down on itself. Routine, responsibility, decay of institutions, corruption: this is all the world closing in.
Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.
Did you ever say yes to a pleasure? oh my friends, then you also said yes to all pain. all things are linked, entwined, in love with one another.
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
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