Our invaluable San Francisco correspondent, John Harris, the resident Professor of Mixology at Original Joe's Restaurant, is an intelligence specialist of the first order when it comes to people and other strange creatures. He submits the gems under the caption, below, on the subject of reason vs. faith.
Spoiler Alert: If God turns out to be a beetle. Don't say you weren't warned.
I was very glad to see the quotes by Diderot and Galileo. Einstein demonstrates that he was a man of little faith in his fellow man.
As for Saint Richard of Feynman, I can't say enough, ever since I first read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. His great statement, in Cargo Cult Science, the last chapter, is:
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, but remember, you are the easiest person to fool."
Investigators in all fields can benefit from posting this on their refrigerator, and that includes political consumers like you and me, as well as our alleged leaders who first invent mindless courses of action and then kill your kids trying to carry them out. Not that this could happen in real life, of course. Ask yourself why Feynman's First Principle is true, and you'll be doing something good for yourself and your fellow man.
The United States...a great nation of 300 million people, surrounded by reality...
Thank you, Professor, you sent this to the right guy.
Quotes - Science
"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it."
-- Erwin Schrodinger talking about quantum mechanics.
"If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I stood
on the shoulders of giants."
-- Sir Isaac Newton
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are
not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer
to reality."
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"Only two things are certain: the universe and human stupidity;
and I'm not certain about the universe."
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
-- Ernest (1st Baron) Rutherford (1871-1937)
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all
those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists
that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to
darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell."
-- St. Augustine (354-430)
"It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or
philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is
talking nonsense."
-- Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, 1948
"Physics is not a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time
raising money."
-- Leon Lederman
"What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics
students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It
is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't
understand it. You see my physics students don't understand
it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does."
-- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988), QED, The Strange Theory
of Light and Matter, Penguin Books, London, 1990, p 9.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
-- Lord Kelvin, while president of the Royal Society
Ginsberg's Theorem (The modern statement of the three laws of thermodynamics)
1. You can't win.
2. You can't even break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.
4. THE LAW OF ENTROPY:
The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum.
"Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV
spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a
piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped
down a flight of stairs."
-- Francis Crick [1916- ]
"He seems to have an inordinate fondness for beetles."
-- John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, British geneticist and
writer (1892-1964), when asked late in his life whether his
studies had taught him anything about God that he might care to
share (JBS Haldane was an atheist. Beetles comprise about a
quarter of all known species.)
"Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light
to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend,
you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more
clearly.' This stranger is a theologian."
-- Diderot, c1762
"First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important
step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the
consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience,
the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to
science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how
smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with
experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it."
-- Richard Feynman, from a PBS show on Dr. Feynman. He was describing to his class how to look for a new law of physics.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has
endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to
forego their use."
-- Galileo Galilei
"The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful
hypothesis by an ugly fact."
-- T H Huxley (1887-1975)
"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary
condition."
-- Anon.
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