Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis -- whic=
h is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism -- especially_ ally=
rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested -- and you're not=
only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A jud=
icious mix is what we need. - Carl Sagan
Probably my favorite line from the essay.
Timbuktu
--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, "Tim Wilson" <thegoodjob_at_...> wrote:
>
> Indeed, if it is Sagan you mean. Also at the forefront of skeptical scien=
tists and associated with one of my mentors and good friends, Barry Beyerst=
ein who helped me to learn scientific method over 35 years ago.
>
> http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/saganws.htm
>
> "I hold there's a kind of Gresham's Law that applies in the confrontation=
of science and pseudoscience: In the popular imagination, at least, the ba=
d science drives out the good. What I mean is this: If you are awash in los=
t continents and channeling and UFOs and all the long litany of claims so w=
ell exposed in the Skeptical Inquirer, you may not have intellectual room f=
or the findings of science. You're sated with wonder. Our culture in one wa=
y produces the fantastic findings of science, and then in another way cuts =
them off before they reach the average person. So people who are curious, i=
ntelligent, dedicated to understanding the world, may nevertheless be (in o=
ur view) enmired in superstition and pseudoscience. You could say, Well, th=
ey ought to know better, they ought to be more critical, and so on; but tha=
t's too harsh. It's not very much their fault, I say. It's the fault of a s=
ociety that preferentially propagates the baloney and holds back the ambros=
ia."
>
>
> "Science involves a seemingly self-contradictory mix of attitudes: On the=
one hand it requires an almost complete openness to all ideas, no matter h=
ow bizarre and weird they sound, a propensity to wonder. As I walk along, m=
y time slows down; I shrink in the direction of motion, and I get more mass=
ive. That's crazy! On the scale of the very small, the molecule can be in t=
his position, in that position, but it is prohibited from being in any inte=
rmediate position. That's wild! But the first is a statement of special rel=
ativity, and the second is a consequence of quantum mechanics. Like it or n=
ot, that's the way the world is. If you insist that it's ridiculous, you wi=
ll be forever closed to the major findings of science. But at the same time=
, science requires the most vigorous and uncompromising skepticism, because=
the vast majority of ideas are simply wrong, and the only way you can dist=
inguish the right from the wrong, the wheat from the chaff, is by critical =
experiment and analysis."
>
> ~Carl Sagan
>
> --- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, "letitgrow69" <letitgrow69_at_> wrote:
> >
> > One of the great thinkers of our time.
> >
> >
> > Went to the well but the water was dry
> > Dipped my bucket in the clear blue sky
> > Looked in the bottom and what did I see?
> > The whole damned world looking back at me - Robert Hunter
> >
> > --- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, Patrick Kennedy <mixelpix86_at_> wrote=
:
> > >
> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_966RzTF6k&feature=youtube_gdata_=
player
> > >
> >
>
Received on Sat Feb 04 2012 - 15:24:23 EST