Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 1
Context: It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don’t, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions.
“…“originality” is everyone’s aim, and novel techniques are as much prized as new scientific discoveries. [T. S. ] Eliot states it with surprising naïveté: “It is exactly as wasteful for a poet to do what has been done already as for a biologist to rediscover Mendel’s discoveries.””
of modernism; “The End of the Line”, pp. 79–80
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
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Randall Jarrell 215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965Related quotes
"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Mythical Phase: Symbol as Archetype
Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)
“An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.”
As quoted in Einstein: The Man and His Achievement (1973) by G. J. Whitrow, p. 42
Variants:
If you can't explain your physics to a barmaid it is probably not very good physics.
As quoted in Journal of Advertising Research (March-April 1998)
A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.
As quoted in The Language of God (2006) by Francis Collins, p. 60
“The next revolution in scientific discovery will depend on scientific interdependence.”
A modern public university, Nature Materials 6, 465 - 467 (01 Jul 2007), doi: 10.1038/nmat1935, Commentary.