Scientist Quotes - Page 19

• Neural scientists at M.I.T. say they can plant false memories in your brain. No, that is not new. Politicians have been doing that for years. They’re called campaign promises.

  Jay Leno

  Memories, Years, Brain

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• I'm a filmmaker, not a scientist.

  Roland Emmerich

  Filmmaker

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• Scientists say they have developed a car that can run on water. The only catch is, the water has to come from the Gulf of Mexico.

  Jay Leno

  Running, Water, Car

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• Why do Americans find government so baffling and irritating-even though many of us depend on public programs for a secure retirement, an affordable mortgage, or a college loan? In this timely and important book, political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains how the United States has come to rely on hidden, indirect policies that privilege special interests but puzzle regular citizens. American democracy can do better, and she shows how. Politicians and the public alike have much to learn from her brilliant and engaging analysis.

  Theda Skocpol

  Retirement, Book, College

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• Why do any of us act the way we do? Is it our beliefs or our biology that shapes us? Lauren Grodstein considers this eternal question through the story of Andrew Waite, scientist, father, widower, struggling to raise two daughters, living with the ghost of his wife, facing a test of his faith in science. There are no easy answers here, just the honest complexity of human beings trying their best to be good people. The Explanation for Everything is moving, beautiful, and wonderfully funny.

  Victor LaValle

  Beautiful, Daughter, Father

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• Miroslav Holub seems to expect his readers to act like scientists, who are curious in every direction, take nothing for granted, and are willing to accept any truth, however unexpected.

  Matthew Zapruder

  Unexpected, Granted, Curious

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• When parents watch scientist after scientist describe the dangers of GM foods, I wouldn't want to be a stubborn food service director trying to stand in their way.

  Hunter Lovins

  Parent, Trying, Directors

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• I'm not a chef. I haven't created any new technique in the kitchen. I'm not a rocket scientist. I think I'm good at writing accessible, fun, and affordable meals for the average American family. That's what I think I'm good at.

  Rachael Ray

  Fun, Writing, Thinking

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• It is a fact that scientists have deposited dye in certain lakes around Orlando and tracked the effluent to Florida Bay. There is a lake near Everglades City, Deep Lake, and large tarpon show up in that lake, 30 miles from the sea.

  Randy Wayne

  Lakes, Florida, Sea

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• I always assumed scientists were free to ask any question, pursue any line of inquiry without fear or reprisal.

  Ben Stein

  Inquiry, Lines, Pursue

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• Scientists say over the next hundred years, the coast of California will sink almost five feet. So the presidential candidates need to do something. Mitt Romney is conflicted. On one hand, he denies that global warming exists. But if California is under water, he would definitely win the next election.

  Craig Ferguson

  Winning, Hands, Years

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• Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.

  Barack Obama

  Paris, Secret, Unions

  Barack Obama, (2008). “Change We Can Believe In”, p.274, Canongate Books

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• A reporter called on Edison to interview him about a substitute for lead in the manufacture of storage batteries that the scientist was seeking. Edison informed the man that he had made 20,000 experiments but none had worked. "Aren't you discouraged by all this waste of effort?" the reporter asked. Edison: "Waste! There's nothing wasted. I have discovered 20,000 things that won't work."

  Thomas A. Edison

  Work, Men, Discovery

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• Possession of a program with unique analytic capabilities puts a scientist in as much of a priveleged position to make new discoveries as the possession of a powerful telescope.

  Heinz Pagels

  Powerful, Unique, Discovery

  Heinz R. Pagels (1988). “The dreams of reason: the computer and the rise of the sciences of complexity”, Simon & Schuster

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• Jesus was the consummate scientist. He knew the omnipresence of Light which we have expressed in radio, radar and television, but all He could say in His day was: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."

  Walter Russell

  Jesus, Science, Light

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• The three most effective incentives to human action may be ... classified as creed, greed and dread. ... In examining the scientist it is perhaps worth while to examine how far he is moved by these three incentives. I think that, rather peculiarly and rather exceptionally, he is very little moved by dread. ... He is in fact essentially a person who has been taught he must be fearless in his dealing with facts.

  Robert Watson-Watt

  Science, Thinking, Effectiveness

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• A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

  Richard Dawkins

  Mean, Fighting, Religion

  "The atheist". Interview with Gordy Slack, www.salon.com. May 1, 2005.

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• When people start using science to argue for their specific beliefs and delusions, to try to claim that they're supported by science, then scientists at least have to speak up and say, You re welcome to your delusions, but don't say that they're supported by science.

  Victor J. Stenger

  People, Religion, Atheism

  Interview with Cliff Walker, www.tapatalk.com. November 6, 1999.

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• Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.

  Scott Westerfeld

  Ideas, Oil, Environmental

  Twitter post from Mar 20, 2014

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• So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could have looked up into its cream and orange sky and seen the most spectacular show ever--fireworks lighting up the Jovian night with a trillion streaks of brilliant crimson, what scientists call neon rain.

  Sam Kean

  Rain, Night, Orange

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• If anything runs deeper than a mathematician’s love of variables, it’s a scientist’s love of constants.

  Sam Kean

  Running, Variables, Mathematician

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• Rather than being an interpreter, the scientist who embraces a new paradigm is like the man wearing inverting lenses.

  Thomas Kuhn

  Men, Lenses, He Man

  Thomas S. Kuhn (1970). “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”

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• But, as all scientists know, there is a time lag of 12 to 18 months between the time a manuscript is submitted and the time it is published in a scientific journal.

  Paul Harvey

  Dark, Age, Lag

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• Discoveries that are anticipated are seldom the most valuable. ... It's the scientist free to pilot his vessel across hidden shoals into open seas who gives the best value.

  John Charles Polanyi

  Science, Discovery, Sea

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• I do not personally want to believe that we already know the equations that determine the evolution and fate of the universe; it would make life too dull for me as a scientist. ... I hope, and believe, that the Space Telescope might make the Big Bang cosmology appear incorrect to future generations, perhaps somewhat analogous to the way that Galileo's telescope showed that the earth-centered, Ptolemaic system was inadequate.

  John N. Bahcall

  Believe, Knowledge, Fate

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