Science

And here is the point, about myself
and my co-thinkers. Our belief is
not a belief. Our principles are
not a faith. We do not rely solely
upon science and reason, because
these are necessary rather than
sufficient factors, but we distrust
anything that contradicts science
or outrages reason. We may differ
on many things, but what we respect
is free inquiry, open-mindedness,
and the pursuit of ideas for their
own sake.

All sciences are vain and full of
errors that are not born of
Experience, the mother of all
Knowledge.

Science is always discovering odd
scraps of magical wisdom and making
a tremendous fuss about its
cleverness.

Human consciousness is just about
the last surviving mystery. A
mystery is a phenomenon that people
don't know how to think about -
yet. There have been other great
mysteries: the mystery of the
origin of the universe, the mystery
of life and reproduction, the
mystery of the design to be found
in nature, the mysteries of time,
space, and gravity. These were not
just areas of scientific ignorance,
but of utter bafflement and wonder.
We do not yet have all the answers
to any of the questions of
cosmology and particle physics,
molecular genetics and evolutionary
theory, but we do know how to think
about them.... With consciousness,
however, we are still in a terrible
muddle. Consciousness stands alone
today as a topic that often leaves
even the most sophisticated
thinkers tongue-tied and confused.
And, as with all of the earlier
mysteries, there are many who
insist and hope - that there will
never be a demystification of
consciousness.

Perhaps in the back of our minds we
already understand, without all the
science I've discussed, that
something terribly wrong is
happening. Our sustenance now comes
from misery. We know that if
someone offers to show us a film on
how our meat is produced, it will
be a horror film. We perhaps know
more than we care to admit, keeping
it down in the dark places of our
memory - disavowed. When we eat
factory-farmed meat we live,
literally, on tortured flesh.
Increasingly, that tortured flesh
is becoming our own.

To know the history of science is
to recognize the mortality of any
claim to universal truth.

Nature never appeals to
intelligence until habit and
instinct are useless. There is no
intelligence where there is no need
of change.

The aim of science is not to open
the door to infinite wisdom, but to
set a limit to infinite error.

Mankind flung its advance agents
ever outward, ever outward.
Eventually it flung them out into
space, into the colourless,
tasteless, weightless sea of
outwardness without
end. It flung them like
stones.

Our belief is not a belief. Our
principles are not a faith. We do
not rely solely upon science and
reason, because these are necessary
rather than sufficient factors, but
we distrust anything that
contradicts science or outrages
reason. We may differ on many
things, but what we respect is free
inquiry, open-mindedness, and the
pursuit of ideas for their own
sake.