Latest Paul Davies Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Cancer is not something confined to human beings. It's found in all multi cellular organisms where the adult cells proliferate, so it's widespread in the biosphere. It's a phenomenon that is deeply related to the history of life itself, so by studying cancer I think we can illuminate the history of life itself and vice versa.

  Paul Davies

  Cancer, Thinking, Cells

  Source: bigthink.com

• Cancer is like another form of life. It's closely related to healthy life. A healthy body is one form of life. Cancer is in a way nature's experiment with life.

  Paul Davies

  Cancer, Healthy, Body

  Source: bigthink.com

• Studying cancer could provide huge insights for astrobiologists into the nature of life itself.

  Paul Davies

  Cancer, Study, Insight

  Source: bigthink.com

• You've got to get away from the idea cancer is a disease to be cured. It's not a disease really. The cancer cell is your own body, your own cells, just misbehaving and going a bit wrong, and you don't have to cure cancer. You don't have to get rid of all those cells. Most people have cancer cells swirling around inside them all the time and mostly they don't do any harm, so what we want to do is prevent the cancer from gaining control. We just want to keep it in check for long enough that people die of something else.

  Paul Davies

  Cancer, Cells, Ideas

  Source: bigthink.com

• It's always good in science to say "Well how do you know that?" and "Are you really sure?" and "Could there be an exceptional case?"

  Paul Davies

  Cases, Exceptional, Wells

  Source: bigthink.com

• We could tell them [alien civilization] things that we have discovered in the realm of mathematical physics, but there is stuff that I would like to know. There are some famous problems like how to bring gravitation and quantum physics together, the long-sought-after theory of quantum gravity. But it may be hard to understand the answer that comes back.

  Paul Davies

  Civilization, Long, Together

  Source: bigthink.com

• Mathematics is universal. It's discovered by human beings, but the rules of mathematics are the same throughout the universe and the laws of the universe.

  Paul Davies

  Law, Mathematics, Humans

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• I think if we're going to send messages to the stars then it needs a great deal of thought that it's something that should involve the entire not only scientific community, but the entire world community. We need to think very carefully indeed.

  Paul Davies

  Stars, Thinking, Community

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• Supposing we knew that up there is some alien civilization and it's sending radio signals our way we should not tell the public where that is. We could say that we've picked up a signal, but we should not tell them where for the simple reason that anybody could commandeer a radio telescope, set themselves up as some self appointed spokesperson of mankind and start beaming all sorts of crazy messages back to the aliens.

  Paul Davies

  Crazy, Simple, Self

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• If we knew we were not alone in the universe it would have a very, very deep impact on our worldview, on our understanding of our place in the universe.

  Paul Davies

  Impact, Understanding, Very Deep

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• It's worth remembering that all technology leaves a footprint. For example, our own technology is leaving a footprint in terms of global warming, which could be detected from a long way away. One assumes that a very advanced civilization that has been around maybe millions and millions of years would have an even bigger footprint that might extend beyond its planet to its immediate astronomical environment.

  Paul Davies

  Technology, Years, Civilization

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• If we're thinking about old civilizations, those that formed a long time ago and there were stars and planets around long before Earth even existed, then these are going to be towards the center of the galaxy. That is the place to look if you think there are ancient civilizations that have made beacons or some other way of attracting our attention.

  Paul Davies

  Stars, Thinking, Civilization

  Source: bigthink.com

• The problem here is that a civilization that is 1,000 light years away doesn't know we exist. They don't know that we have radio telescopes here on Earth because they see Earth as it was 1,000 years ago. Nothing can travel faster than light, so however good their instruments they can't see in affect the future. So there is no particular reason they should be sending us messages at this time.

  Paul Davies

  Light, Years, Civilization

  Source: bigthink.com

• We know that within the solar system is very unlikely there will be anything more advanced than microbial life, but if we think outside the solar system and then, the distances are, of course, immense, then there could be Earth-like planets with more advanced form of life.

  Paul Davies

  Distance, Thinking, Earth

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• Most life on Earth is microbes. we've only just scratched the surface of the microbial realm. Probably less than .1% of microbes have been classified let alone cultured or had their genes sequenced, so really that microbial realm is a mystery.

  Paul Davies

  Earth, Mystery, Genes

  Source: bigthink.com

• I should say we know that there are many, many other Earths out there. We're almost certain that there will be upwards of a billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy alone, so there is no lack of real estate where life might happen, but what we don't know is how likely it is given the real estate, given a wonderful pristine planet like Earth how likely is it that life will pop up inhabited? We don't know the answer to that.

  Paul Davies

  Real, Answers, Earth

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• What we want is another sample of life, which is not on our tree of life at all. All life that we've studied so far on Earth belongs to the same tree. We share genes with mushrooms and oak trees and fish and bacteria that live in volcanic vents and so on that it's all the same life descended from a common origin. What we want is a second tree of life. We want alien life, alien not necessarily in the sense of having come from space, but alien in the sense of belonging to a different tree altogether. That is what we're looking for, "life 2.0."

  Paul Davies

  Mushrooms, Space, Tree

  Source: bigthink.com

• It's only fashion that has said the pendulum has swung from extreme skepticism about extraterrestrial life to extreme credulity. The truth is somewhere in between.

  Paul Davies

  Fashion, Truth Is, Said

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• When I was a student almost nobody thought there was any life beyond Earth. Today it's fashionable to say that there is life all over the place, that the universe is teeming with it, but the scientific facts on the ground haven't really changed.

  Paul Davies

  Today, Facts, Earth

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• "Are we alone in the universe?" This is a question which goes back to the dawn of history, but for most of human history it has been in the province of religion and philosophy. Fifty or something years ago, however, it became part of science.

  Paul Davies

  Philosophy, Years, Dawn

  Source: bigthink.com

• If we're looking for intelligence in the universe I think everybody assumes that this has to start with life and so the question is: "How likely is it that there will be life elsewhere in the universe?"

  Paul Davies

  Thinking, Assuming, Elsewhere

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• In the 1990s I began to study the prospects that life could spread from Mars to Earth or maybe Earth to Mars and that maybe life began on Mars and came to Earth, and that idea seemed to have a lot of traction and is now accepted as very plausible.

  Paul Davies

  Ideas, Mars, Earth

  Source: bigthink.com

• To a physicist life looks nothing short of a miracle. It's just amazing what living things can do.

  Paul Davies

  Miracle, Looks, Physicist

  "Big Think Interview With Paul Davies". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. April 15, 2010.

• I suppose my interest in looking for life elsewhere in the universe really dates back to my teens. What teenager doesn't look up at the sky at night and think am I alone in the universe? Well most people get over it, but I never did and though I made a career more in physics and cosmology than astrobiology I've always had a soft spot for the subject of life because it does seem so mysterious.

  Paul Davies

  Teenager, Night, Thinking

  Source: bigthink.com