Gerald Holton Quotes

• In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side-by-side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

  Gerald Holton

  Success, Intellectual, Intelligence

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• Persons living in this modern world who do not know the basic facts that determine their very existence, functioning, and surroundings, are living in a dream world. Such persons are, in a very real sense, not sane.

  Gerald Holton

  Dream, Real, Facts

  Gerald James Holton (1988). “Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein”, p.464, Harvard University Press

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• If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite. ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery.

  Gerald Holton

  Freedom, Self, Views

  "Where is Science Taking Us? Gerald Holton Maps the Possible Routes". The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 18, 1981.

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• To this day, we see all around us the Promethean drive to omnipotence through technology and to omniscience through science. The effecting of all things possible and the knowledge of all causes are the respective primary imperatives of technology and of science. But the motivating imperative of society continues to be the very different one of its physical and spiritual survival. It is now far less obvious than it was in Francis Bacon's world how to bring the three imperatives into harmony, and how to bring all three together to bear on problems where they superpose.

  Gerald Holton

  Spiritual, Knowledge, Science

  Gerald James Holton (1986). “The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays”, p.183, CUP Archive

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• The flight of most members of a profession to the high empyrean, where they can work peacefully on purely scientific problems, isolated from the turmoil of real life, was perhaps quite appropriate at an earlier stage of science; but in today's world it is a luxury we cannot afford.

  Gerald Holton

  Real, Science, Luxury

  Gerald James Holton (1998). “The Scientific Imagination: With a New Introduction”, p.250, Harvard University Press

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• Even in the best times, managing science has been compared to herding cats; it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all.

  Gerald Holton

  Cat, Done, Wells

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