Phil Plait Quotes

• Pseudoscience is like a virus. At low levels, it's no big deal, but when it reaches a certain threshold it becomes sickening.

  Phil Plait

  Viruses, Pseudoscience, Levels

  "Scientist attacks alien claims on Mars" By Robert Roy Britt, www.cnn.com. March 18, 2004.

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• Our solar system is fantastically bizarre. There are worlds with features we never imagined. Storms larger than planets, moons with under-surface oceans, lakes of methane, worldlets that swap places...and that's just at Saturn.

  Phil Plait

  Ocean, Moon, Lakes

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• I'm tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.

  Phil Plait

  Inspiration, Tired, Ignorance

  "The Mainstreaming of Crazy". Blog at Discover magazine, blogs.discovermagazine.com. September 08, 2009.

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• Teach a man to reason and he will think for a lifetime.

  Phil Plait

  Men, Thinking, Lifetime

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• If a little kid ever asks you just why the sky is blue, you look him or her right in the eye and say, 'It's because of quantum effects involving Rayleigh scattering combined with a lack of violet photon receptors in our retinae.'

  Phil Plait

  Kids, Eye, Blue

  "Bad Astronomy". Book by Phil Plait, 2002.

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• How do you convince someone they're not thinking clearly, when they're not thinking clearly? What we're actually saying is no magic, no afterlife, no higher moral authoritative father-figure, no security, and no happy ever after. This is a tough sell.

  Phil Plait

  Father, Thinking, Afterlife

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• You can experience the thrill of discovery, the incredible, visceral feeling of doing something no one has ever done before, see things no one has ever seen before, know something no one has ever known before. ... Welcome to science, you're gonna like it here.

  Phil Plait

  Discovery, Feelings, Thrill

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• The difference between the dinosaurs and us is that we have a space program and we can vote...

  Phil Plait

  Differences, Space, Dinosaurs

  "How to defend Earth from asteroids". TED Talk, www.ted.com. September 2011.

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• It’s dead obvious that creationism isn’t science, or even bad science. It’s nonsense. But I’ve long stated it’s also bad religion, because it doesn’t just take faith, it also takes a phenomenal disregard of reality.

  Phil Plait

  Reality, Long, Nonsense

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• I still hear some people say that science takes the wonder out of life. Those people are utterly wrong. Science takes us to the wonder

  Phil Plait

  People, Wonder, Stills

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• Just like people, stars can be important without being terribly bright.

  Phil Plait

  Stars, People, Important

  "Bad Astronomy". Book by Phil Plait, 2002.

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• Other job markets may lay claim to the title, but astronomy is actually the world's oldest profession.

  Phil Plait

  Jobs, Titles, World

  "Death from the Skies!". Book by Phil Plait, 2008.

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• It's amazing to me that not only can we put a probe around Saturn and get images of its moons, but our math and physics are so freaking accurate we can say, "Hey, you know what? On this date at this time if we turn Cassini that way we'll see a moon over 2 million kilometers away pass in front of another one nearly 3 million kilometers away." Every morning, I have a 50/50 chance of finding my keys. That kinda puts things in perspective.

  Phil Plait

  Morning, Math, Moon

  "A Marvelous Night for a (Saturn) Moon Dance". blogs.discovermagazine.com. February 10, 2010.

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• However, science isn't just about showing when you're right; it's also about showing when you're wrong.

  Phil Plait

  "Bad Astronomy". Book by Phil Plait, 2002.

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• They say that even the brightest star won't shine forever. But in fact, the brightest star would live the shortest amount of time. Feel free to extract whatever life lesson you want from that.

  Phil Plait

  Stars, Life Lesson, Shining

  "Death from the Skies!". Book by Phil Plait, 2008.

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• The Universe is cool enough without making up crap about it.

  Phil Plait

  Enough, Crap, Universe

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• Humanity and life are reflected in the stars, and the Universe itself is poetry.

  Phil Plait

  Stars, Humanity, Universe

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• I'm tired of ignorance held up as inspiration.

  Phil Plait

  Inspiration, Tired, Ignorance

  "The mainstreaming of crazy". "Bad Astronomy" blog by Phil Plait at "Discover Magazine", blogs.discovermagazine.com. September 8, 2009.

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• Welcome to science. You’re gonna like it here.

  Phil Plait

  Welcome

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• Sometimes, even by accident, the universe makes beauty, and we can stand back in awe of it. Even better - we can figure out why. Science! I love this stuff.

  Phil Plait

  Stuff, Sometimes, Figures

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• Some people try to tell me that science will never answer the big questions we have in life. To them I say: baloney! The real problem is your questions aren't big enough.

  Phil Plait

  Real, People, Trying

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• Not everything that’s cool is science, but everything in science is cool.

  Phil Plait

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• Astrology ... makes vague predictions that can always be adapted after the fact to fit observations, as we'll see. Astrologers don't seek causes at all, for a good reason: There isn't any cause to astrology. If you look for some underlying reason, some connection between the stars and planets and our lives, you won't find any. For astrology to sell, buyers must not seek out the fundamental principles behind it, because if they do they'll see that there is none.

  Phil Plait

  Stars, Astrology, Connections

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• If you took every nuclear weapon ever built at the height of the Cold War, lumped them together and blew them up at the same time, that would be one one-millionth of the energy released at that moment.

  Phil Plait

  Motivation, War, Inspiration

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• The best idea ever thought of in the history of humanity is useless unless someone communicates it. It will die in the test tube. And in our case, what we're communicating here to people is not necessarily something they want to hear. And so, our demeanor - how we deliver this message - takes on crucial, crucial importance.

  Phil Plait

  Ideas, People, Humanity

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