Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world.
Interpretation
Science encompasses all logical and evidence-based knowledge about humanity and the universe.
In this quote, Sam Harris suggests that science is not limited to traditional scientific disciplines, but rather includes any credible assertion that can be justified by evidence and reason. It emphasizes the importance of a scientific approach to understanding both our internal human experiences and the external world around us, thereby creating a holistic view of knowledge.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one could say, 'As Sam Harris stated, science encompasses all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world.'
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.
What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.
Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.
To the extent that we even understand string theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything.
Science reserves the highest reward for those of you who disprove our most cherished beliefs. At any moment someone from any walk of life could come forward and be responsible for a complete revision of our view of everything.
When the wrong question is being asked, it usually turns out to be because the right question is too difficult. Scientists ask questions they can answer. That is, it is often the case that the operations of a science are not a consequence of the problematic of that science, but that the problematic is induced by the available means.
Just one living cell in the human body is, more complex than New York City.
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