Friday, November 20, 2009

Our tendency to scientific fantasy not reality

More great quotes from Bob Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down
“The great power of science is its ability, through brutal objectivity, to reveal to us truth we did not anticipate.”
(p. xvi)

``mythologies are immensely powerful things, and sometimes we humans go to enormous lengths to see the world as we think it should be, even when the evidence says we are mistaken.’’
(p. 114)

“ideologies preclude discovery. All of us see the world as we wish it were rather than as it actually is.”
(p. 116).

There are similarities to the cautions of Walter Kauzmann, in his Reminiscences of a Life in Protein Chemistry.

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