For me, science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance.
Interpretation
Science reveals the wonders of nature, making fantastical beliefs seem trivial.
In this quote, Paul Davies emphasizes the incredible revelations that science offers in understanding the universe through disciplines like physics, cosmology, and astrobiology. He suggests that these scientific discoveries are so awe-inspiring that they render fanciful beliefs, such as alien abductions, insignificant by comparison.
In practice
During a science presentation, one might say, 'As Paul Davies pointed out, science unveils a wonderland of knowledge that far surpasses supernatural beliefs.'
The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. The belief that there is "something behind it all" is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.
Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term 'doubting Thomas' well illustrates the difference.
Although the elusive 'cure' may be a distant dream, understanding the true nature of cancer will enable it to be better controlled and less menacing.
Many investigators feel uneasy stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they admit they are baffled.
Traditionally, scientists have treated the laws of physics as simply 'given,' elegant mathematical relationships that were somehow imprinted on the universe at its birth, and fixed thereafter. Inquiry into the origin and nature of the laws was not regarded as a proper part of science.
The laws of physics ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose.
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.
The legends of fieldwork locate all important sites deep in inaccessible jungles inhabited by fierce beasts and restless natives, and surrounded by miasmas of putrefaction and swarms of tsetse flies.
In my mind, there is no question that they're out there. My Career is well established. My texts books are required reading in all the major capitals on planet earth. If you want to become a physist to learn about the unified feild therory-you read my books. Therefore, I'm in a position to say: Yes- Most likely they're out their, perhaps even visited, perhaps on our moon.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
Science appears to us with a very different aspect after we have found out that it is not in lecture rooms only, and by means of the electric light projected on a screen, that we may witness physical phenomena, but that we may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.