“Soap prevented more deaths than penicillin. That’s technology, not science.”

— John Lanchester

The Case Against Civilization https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-case-against-civilization (September 18, 2017), The New Yorker.

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John Lanchester 4

British writer 1962

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. 1-2; as cited by David Byrne (1999) in: " Complexity and Postmodernism: Book Review http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/2/2/review1.html" in JASSS Vol 2 (2)

“The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological — technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

From Hawking's article A Brief History of Relativity http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993018-6,00.html, in Time magazine (31 December 1999)

“Our strongest ally in the battle against death is the combination of futurism, transhumanism, science, technology, philosophy, and politics.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

“Science and technology have a simple and persuasive message: the world's problems are soluble by ingenuity and material innovations; the world's riddles, such as the origins of the universe, can be unravelled by the scientific mind. But while science's achievements have been remarkable, they have not been revolutionary in probing human nature. In some ways the measurable problems analysed by science and technology are more easily dissected than human problems. The moon is more easily explored than the typical mind and heart.”

Geoffrey Blainey book A Short History of Christianity

A Short History of Christianity (2011)

“Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” More like pour some penicillin”

Alafair Burke (1969) American novelist and legal scholar

All Day and a Night

“We're beginning to learn the hard way that today's global ills are not cured by more and more science and technology.”

Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) American neuroscientist

New Mindset on Consciousness (1987)
Context: I have a very one-track mind that needs to concentrate. I asked myself which issue is more important: whether mental states are more left- or right-hemispheric, or whether they are causal in brain function. From weighing the pros and cons, I decided that the left-brain, right-brain work was well in orbit and that it would be more important to shift my primary focus to consciousness.
The mind-brain issues are intrinsically more compelling. They carry strong humanistic as well as scientific implications. I could foresee changes in our world view, guiding beliefs, and social values. In the context of today's worsening world conditions and our imperiled future, this work seemed far more important than whether you can find a brain theory enabling people to learn faster, draw better, make better medical diagnoses, and so on.
We're beginning to learn the hard way that today's global ills are not cured by more and more science and technology.

“The truth isn't easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

“Penicillin has two chromosomes.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Chromosomes NOT! evidence for evolution by Kent Hovind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DA11U4hIKk, at 0 minutes 7 seconds, Youtube (May 20, 2013)

“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

"Why We Need To Understand Science" in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990) http://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_we_need_to_understand_science

“Instead of enabling humans to improve their lot, science degrades the natural environment in which humans must live. Instead of enabling death to be overcome, it produces ever more powerful technologies of mass destruction. None of this is the fault of science; what it shows is that science is not sorcery. The growth of knowledge enlarges what humans can do. It cannot reprieve them from being what they are.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Sweet Morality (p. 235)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

“Soap prevented more deaths than penicillin. That’s technology, not science.”

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