“I think that it's important for scientists to explain their work, particularly in cosmology. This now answers many questions once asked of religion.”
As quoted in "Return of the time lord" in The Guardian (27 September 2005)
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Stephen Hawking 122
British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942–2018Related quotes
"Diary of a Political Scientist," http://www.slate.com/id/2094743/entry/2095060/ Slate (February 5, 2004).
“What expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?”
Source: The God Delusion (2006), p. 79
“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.”
Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 6, “Treachery” (p. 89)
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), "The Edge of Forever" [Episode 10]
Context: But we don't yet know whether the Universe is open or closed. More than that, there are a few astronomers who doubt that the redshift of distant galaxies is due to the doppler effect, who are skeptical of the expanding Universe and the Big Bang. Perhaps our descendants will regard our present ignorance with as much sympathy as we feel to the ancients for not knowing the Earth went around the Sun. If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding Universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the Universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly somehow created, how did that happen? In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or Gods created the Universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question: where did God come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step, and conclude that the Universe always existed? That there's no need for a creation, it was always here. These are not easy questions. Cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries, questions that were once treated only in religion and myth.
Time magazine http://www.numenware.com/article/547
47 : The Question and its Answer, p. 78.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Original: (it) Quando si è bimbi si fanno tante domande pretendendo altrettante risposte. Quando si è adulti si evitano molte domande, per evitare inutili risposte.
Source: prevale.net