“I, for one, bet on science as helping us. I have yet to see how it fundamentally endangers us, even with the H-bomb lurking about. Science has given us more lives than it has taken; we must remember that.”

"Self Portrait" (1968), reprinted in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (1995), ed. Lawrence Sutin

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Philip K. Dick278

American author 1928–1982

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 5, Abstraction, Beyond concrete reality, p. 35

“Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.”

Jean Rostand (1894–1977) French writer

La science a fait de nous des dieux avant même que nous méritions d'être des hommes.
[Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist, 1939]

“It terrifies one to think for how short a time science has been methodical and of useful industry; and after all, is there anything on earth more marvelously easy than destruction?”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi
Context: It terrifies one to think for how short a time science has been methodical and of useful industry; and after all, is there anything on earth more marvelously easy than destruction? Who knows the new mediums it has laid in store? Who knows the limit of cruelty to which the art of poisoning may go? Who knows if they will not subject and impress epidemic disease as they do the living armies — or that it will not emerge, meticulous, invincible, from the armies of the dead? Who knows by what dread means they will sink in oblivion this war, which only struck to the ground twenty thousand men a day, which has invented guns of only seventy-five miles' range, bombs of only one ton's weight, aeroplanes of only a hundred and fifty miles an hour, tanks, and submarines which cross the Atlantic? Their costs have not yet reached in any country the sum total of private fortunes.

“Science is a most useful thing for us all. It is one of the most useful ornaments of man. There is no dress which embellishes the body more than science does the mind.”

Laurent Clerc (1785–1869) French-American deaf educator

Statement of 1864, quoted in Pamphlets on the Deaf, Dumb & Blind http://books.google.com/books?id=FLcMAQAAIAAJ&q=%22There+is+no+dress+which+embellishes+the+body+more+than+science+does+the+mind%22&dq=%22There+is+no+dress+which+embellishes+the+body+more+than+science+does+the+mind%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UlFgVOWoJY-uyATH1YDACQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA

“When confronted by midnight in the social order we have in the past turned to science for help. And little wonder! On so many occasions science has saved us. When we were in the midnight of physical limitation and material inconvenience, science lifted us to the bright morning of physical and material comfort. When we were in the midnight of crippling ignorance and superstition, science brought us to the daybreak of the free and open mind. When we were in the midnight of dread plagues and diseases, science, through surgery, sanitation, and the wonder drugs, ushered in the bright day of physical health, thereby prolonging our lives and making for greater security and physical well-being. How naturally we turn to science in a day when the problems of the world are so ghastly and ominous. But alas! science cannot now rescue us, for even the scientist is lost in the terrible midnight of our age. Indeed, science gave us the very instruments that threaten to bring universal suicide.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

A Knock on Midnight http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/multimediaentry/doc_a_knock_at_midnight/ <br class="br">1960s, Strength to Love (1963)

“We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this…The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way…It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use.”

Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000) Armenian-American composer

Alan Hovhaness, Interview with Ararat Magazine http://www.hovhaness.com/Interview_Ararat.html, 1971.

“I used to think that science would save us, and science certainly tried. But we can't stand any more tremendous explosions, either for or against democracy.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Bennington College address (1970)
Context: We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. I used to think that science would save us, and science certainly tried. But we can't stand any more tremendous explosions, either for or against democracy.

“I suppose we must work on being gracious and grateful until we can do for ourselves. Someday the wheel of fate will put us in a position to be of use to them, and we will remember how much easier it is to give help than it is to accept it.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

“We live in an enlightened age, however, an age that has learned to see and to value other living things as they are, not as we wish them to be. And the long and creditable history of science has taught us, if nothing else, to look carefully before we judge—to judge, if we must, based on what we see, not what we would prefer to believe.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Blind Lake

Source: Blind Lake (2003), Chapter 22 (p. 258)

“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 50

“I, for one, bet on science as helping us. I have yet to see how it fundamentally endangers us, even with the H-bomb lurking about. Science has given us more lives than it has taken; we must remember that.”

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