"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. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track. Those two seemingly contradictory attitudes are, though, in some tension."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesScience authors from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"We live in a complex age where many of the problems we face can, whatever their origins, only have solutions that invβ¦"
"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sβ¦"
"Imagine, a room, awash in gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches.β¦"
"It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information."
"There is a place with four suns in the sky β red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that theβ¦"
"It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligenβ¦"
"We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almβ¦"
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny β¦"
"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," aβ¦"
"Humans β who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals β have had an understandable penchant for preβ¦"