Science Quotes – Insightful Reflections on Research and Knowledge

"…Whoever has the power in society determines what can be studied, determines what can be observed, determines what can be thought. Scientists fall in line with the dominant power structure. They have to, because the power structure pays the bills. You don’t play ball with the power structure, you don’t get money for research, you don’t get an appointment, you don’t get published, in short you don’t count anymore. You’re out. You might as well be dead."

Michael Crichton

"I truly see a massive distortion in our current worldview because natural science and technology, represented these days by virology and computer simulations, have taken the former place of religion. In short, essentially at the end of the day, engaging in unfounded metaphysics – but based on facts. Yes, the natural sciences today belong to the standard realm of ideology, and ideology today means that you can lie with facts…"

Prof. Dr. Markus Gabriel

"But in the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." To the question, "How will it all end?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. Moreover, the science-god has no answer to the question, "Why are we here?" and, to the question, "What moral instructions do you give us?", the science-god maintains silence."

Neil Postman

"You cannot study physics at any university anywhere in the world, because everything taught there is half disproven and half irrelevant. The relevant physics only takes place behind the closed doors of the labs in the arms and industrial sectors. The researchers working there use laws of nature that are unknown to university professors."

Robert Betts Laughlin

"Contrary to the scientific ideal of getting progressively closer to the truth, it looks rather like cosmology, to borrow a term from technology studies, has become path-dependent: overdetermined by the implications of its past inventions."

Bjørn Ekeberg

"today's multilayered theoretical edifice of the big bang paradigm would turn out to be a confusing mix of fictional beasts invented to uphold the model, along with empirically valid variables mutually reliant on each other to the point of making it impossible to sort science from fiction."

Bjørn Ekeberg

"Each new discrepancy between observation and theory can, of course, in and of itself be considered an exciting promise of more research, a progressive refinement toward the truth. But when they add up, they could also suggest a more confounding problem that is not resolved by tweaking parameters or adding new variables."

Bjørn Ekeberg

"They're both the same. An astrophysicist looking out there is thinking in terms of science fiction."

William Shatner

"Science that fails to embrace all living beings is far more dangerous than any virus!"

Steve Simmons

"If we fail to find any of this—even at the highest energies we can reach—then we’ll have to do some serious rethinking and essentially start over from scratch. Which, of course, is exciting in its own way. Science is always exciting: if you don’t find anything, you simply have to come up with something new. Imagination is always the foundation of science."

Wolfram Zeuner

"The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart."

Walter Lippmann

"Science is always simple and always profound. It is only the half-truths that are dangerous."

George Bernard Shaw

"Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn."

Stephen W. Hawking

"Truth was never the highest priority of human society. It was the highest priority of some individuals, but never of society as a whole — because society as a whole does not function on the basis of truth. If you take two of the most powerful institutions of humankind — science and the scientific community, and religion and churches — neither of them has truth as their chief value. For individuals, yes. But as institutions, no. The chief value of science is power. The chief value of religion is order — organization. Religion is all about maintaining order in society, and science is mainly about gaining power."

Yuval Noah Harari