jonathan butz

For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgoten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxys than people. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and by the depth of our answers.

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right; they’re the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it.

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.