Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spendtime wondering why nature is the way it is . . .
The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood
If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as 'human rights'? How smart does a chimp have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
There are huge advertising budgets only when there's no difference between the products. If the products really were different, people would buy the one that's better. Advertising teaches people not to trust their judgment. Advertising teaches people to be stupid.
In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.
Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.
Organic as a dandelion seed, [the ship of our imagination] will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts
The illegality of cannabis is outrageous.
The visions we offer our children shape the future.
Those who seek power at any price detect a societal weakness, a fear that they can ride into office.
Religions are often state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role. In a way, it's an artefact from times long gone.
Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.
It seems madness to say, 'We're worried that they're going to become addicted to marijuana' -- there's no evidence whatever that it's an addictive drug, but even if it were, these people are dying, what are we saving them from?
I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.
Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.
The Earth is a place. It is by no means the only place. It is not even a typical place.
I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust in the morning sky.
If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I'd be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote. As with the face on Mars and alien abductions, better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy.
Eratosthenes's only tools were sticks, eyes, feet, and brains; plus a zest for experiment. With those tools he correctly deduced the circumference of the Earth, to high precision, with an error of only a few percent. That's pretty good figuring for 2200 years ago.
For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
Demon mean knowledge in Greek, especially about the material world. Science means knowledge in Latin. A jurisdictional dispute is exposed, even if we look no further
A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.
There is a report that says that kids who watch violent TV programs tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programs?
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.
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