"When one turns to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, and sees how it was reared; what thousands of disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its mere foundations; what patience and postponement, what choking down of preference, what submission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely impersonal it stands in its vast augustness - then how besotted and contemptible seems every little sentimentalist who comes blowing his voluntary smoke wreaths, and pretending to decide things from out of his private dream."
Attributed to William James
here
"Richard Milton's defense of "alternative" science is a textbook case of Why Intelligent People Believe Dumb Things. Nearly every logical fallacy and psychological foible that hinders us from being fair and accurate in our assessment of claims and arguments regarding science and the paranormal is exemplified by Milton."
"I'm often asked, "Just what is science, anyway?" Here's how I answer:
Simply put, science is an organized system for finding out how the universe operates. Its beauty lies in the fact that it is perpetually questioning its own decisions in order to produce even more accurate statements about the world. Science does not declare "facts" — it makes statements that describe how nature works, statements that are always subject to correction, revision, or refinement. Science approaches "truth" but can never really get there, since we live in a universe that constantly surprises us with its wonders and complexity. But we do have an excellent understanding — through science and its methods — of how to control, fashion, handle — and sometimes alter — this incredible world in which we find ourselves, willy-nilly. Science is a tool, not a final statement. It is never dogmatic, always ready to accept new paradigms, and totally flexible. It is the single most powerful means we have of understanding ourselves and our world, and probably the most important accomplishment of our species."
"It is important to have some knowledge of basic scientific facts, concepts, and vocabulary. Those who possess such knowledge have an easier time following news reports and participating in public discourse on various issues pertaining to science and technology. It may be even more important to have an appreciation for the scientific process. Understanding how ideas are investigated and analyzed is a sure sign of scientific literacy. This knowledge is valuable not only in keeping up with important issues and participating in the political process, but also in evaluating and assessing the validity of various other types of information."
"Everything is made of atoms. That is the key hypothesis. The most important hypothesis in all biology, for example, is that everything that animals do, atoms do. In other words, there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics."
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol 1
by Richard Feynman, et al. Ch 1, p 8
"... until our very recent past, families were big, infant death rates were high, the middle class was tiny, justice was a joke, illiteracy was the norm, starvation was common, and medicine was a bottomless pit of ignorance.
Science and engineering changed all that. To give just one example, lifespans in advanced countries rose more in this century than they had in all the previous five hundred centuries of recorded history. At the beginning of this century most of us died in our forties, just as we had since time immemorial. Now, at century's end, those of us lucky enough to be born in advanced countries die in our seventies. ...
Science gives us that cornucopia because we use it to ask the universe what things are really like, not what we would like them to be. ...
The arts and the humanities give our lives meaning, but science and engineering give us the means to live."
"Suppose, for instance, I am a Renaissance mathematician desperate to prove to a duke that I could solve some problem, say all cubic equations. However, I can't just tell him my method because then he, or his court mathematician, may steal it. Here's what I do: I tell the duke to choose any cubic equation he wants to. Once he does, I quickly give him the solution. He can easily check my answer by plugging it into the equation he originally chose.
Of course, he's still suspicious. Maybe I just made a lucky guess. So I encourage him to pick another equation---which I then briskly solve. I keep doing that until he believes that I can indeed solve any of them. He will eventually give up and believe me because I'm very unlikely to keep guessing the right answer without having the knowledge I claim to have. Best of all, even after he believes me, he still hasn't the smallest idea of how I came by my knowledge. I've convinced him that I know a secret without actually having to tell him the secret.
To make that scheme work, four things must be true. ..."
"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense."