Re: Infamous quotes

Jim Bell (70672.1241@compuserve.com)
08 Nov 95 11:55:19 EST

Brian quoted a PW Atkins thus:

<< Scientists, with their implicit trust in reductionism,
are privileged to be at the summit of knowledge, and
to see further into truth than any of their contemporaries.
They are busy in the public domain, where truth can be
tested by shared experience, where truth supervenes
international boundaries and cultures. Scientists liberate
truth from prejudice, and through their work lend wings
to society's aspirations. While poetry titillates and
theology obfuscates, science liberates.>>

I love quotes like this. Very revealing. I also like Jastrow's resonse in "God
and the Astronomers":

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the
story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is
about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for
centuries."