“The advance of human knowledge has become — at long last — a vividly enjoyable spectator sport! And a growing movement toward amateur science shows there is room for participants at every level.”

—  David Brin

Orbit interview (2002)
Context: I maintain contacts with researchers in dozens of fields, both for fun and to keep up. In fact, any well-read citizen can stay reasonably current nowadays, by reading any of the popular science magazines that describe remarkable advances every week, in terms non-specialists can understand. The advance of human knowledge has become — at long last — a vividly enjoyable spectator sport! And a growing movement toward amateur science shows there is room for participants at every level.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The advance of human knowledge has become — at long last — a vividly enjoyable spectator sport! And a growing movement …" by David Brin?
David Brin photo
David Brin 123
novelist, short story writer 1950

Related quotes

Daniel Levitin photo

“It is only in the last five hundred years that music has become a spectator activity”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)
Context: It is only in the last five hundred years that music has become a spectator activity—the thought of a musical concert in which a class of "experts" performed for an appreciative audience was virtually unkown throughout our history as a species. And it has only been in the last hundred years or so that the ties between musical sound and human movement have been minimized.

Carl R. Rogers photo

“There is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities.”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977)
Source: page 7

Adolphe Quetelet photo

“It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared. This globe, of which man imagines the haughty possessor, becomes, in the eyes of astronomer, merely a grain of dust floating in immensity of space: an earthquake, a tempest, an inundation, may destroy in an instant an entire people, or ruin the labours of twenty ages.... But if each step in the career of science thus gradually diminishes his importance, his pride has a compensation in the greater idea of his intellectual power, by which he has been enabled to perceive those laws which seem to be, by their nature, placed for ever beyond his grasp.

Anil Kumble photo

“For years, we thought we are a sporting nation but we had little to show. In the last decade, India's sporting success has changed all that.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

India became a sporting nation in the last decade: Kumble

“There is no knowledge and science like pondering and thought; and there is no prosperity and advancement like knowledge and science.”

Ali (601–661) cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol. 1, p. 179
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Yuzuru Hanyu photo
Michael Moore photo

“Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

"Capitalism is evil," says new Michael Moore film, Mike, Collett-White, Reuters, 6 September 2009 http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5850F320090906,
2009

John Dewey photo

“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

The Quest for Certainty (1929), Ch. XI
Misc. Quotes
Source: The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action

Victor Hugo photo

“In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)
Context: This book, Les Misérables, is no less your mirror than ours. Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt against this book, — I understand that. Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them from being of use. As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.

James Frazer photo

“The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that ever recedes.”

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 69, Farewell to Nemi.

Related topics