Nutjob Quotes
We recently received a missive from a nutjob who mistakenly thinks he has a great new theory regarding orbital motion. This despite a demonstrated complete lack of celestial mechanics, mathematics, physics, and knowledge of the scientific method. However, this guy is much more interesting and quirky than any other nutjob who has spammed us. Here are a few select quotes:
“Stop thinking of loops in space. They are not happening.”
“You are sailors. You should be freaking out that something out there is on a steady bearing. Call the Captain.”
“Earth is moving at nearly one million kilometers per second in space. Lots of time to make you think orbits are happening.”
“You’ve been hoodwinked. Now take a closer look and you will see we are space crap… matter, caught in a sea of energy called galaxies and stuff.”
“Wake up folks. This is no tale of the imagination. This is a tale of science and scientists who don’t know how to throw a football.”
“I will keep hollering in the wind until someone pays attention… with 4 billion humans out there, you can’t all be idiots.”
On the Current Epidemic of Anti-Intellectualism
The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is—second only to American political campaigns—the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.
-- Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990)
Benjamin Franklin on Faith and Reason
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”
--Benjamin Franklin
Infinitude of the Universe and Stupidity
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Albert Einstein
On Science
A few select quotes from a recent Guardian article:
I would teach the world that science is the best way to understand the world, and that for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Also, science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology — from medicine to industry.
--Lewis Wolpert, Emeritus professor of biology, University College London
I would teach the world that scientists start by trying very hard to disprove what they hope is true. When they fail, they have a good reason for believing what they hope is true, and can even convince others of its truth. A scientist always acknowledges the possibility of error, and is less likely to be mistaken than one who always claims to be right.
--Antony Hoare, Senior researcher at Microsoft Corporation
I would teach the world that science = imagination + humility². If only politicians were ruled by the scientific principles of conjectures (hypothesis generation) and refutations (controlled experimentation), then the world would be a better place.
--Michael Baum, Emeritus professor of surgery, University College London
Frighteningly, most people do not understand Darwin’s great insight. What people miss is the sheer inevitability of the creative process. Once you see it —copy, vary, select; copy, vary, select —you see that design by natural selection simply has to happen. This is not like Isaac Newton’s laws, or quantum physics, or any of the other great theories in science, where one can ask “why is this so?” It simply has to be the case. Then, the scary implications follow. If everyone understood evolution, then the tyranny of religious memes would be weakened, and we little humans might find a better way to live in this pointless universe.
--Susan Blackmore, Science writer and broadcaster
I would like to teach the world about climate change, and the role of every human being in causing it. This is far and away the biggest threat to our planet. We will only fight the more serious consequences of climate change if every individual accepts responsibility, and if every individual modifies their behaviour.
--Lynne Frostick Professor of physical geography, University of Hull
Erecting hypotheses that can be falsified, and designing experiments capable of doing so, is the hallmark of the true scientist. In fact, it distinguishes the scientist from the non-scientist.
--Dr Robert Maynard, Senior medical officer at the UK Department of Health
Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it. The myth that science gets rid of mysteries, started by the Romantic poets, was well nailed by Albert Einstein —whose thought experiments about relativity are far more otherworldly, elusive, thrilling, and baffling than anything dreamt up by poets.
Isaac Newton showed us the mysteries of deep space, Charles Darwin showed us the mysteries of deep time, and Francis Crick and James D Watson showed us the mysteries of deep encoding. To get rid of those insights would be to reduce the world’s stock of awe.
--Matt Ridley, Founding chair of the International Centre for Life
Hamlet’s Cat’s Soliloquy
from rec.humor.funny:
To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains upon those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock’s bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell.
To sit, to stare Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal’s opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt.
To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there’s the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household’s petty plagues,
The cook’s well-practiced kicks, the butler’s broom,
The infant’s careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten?
Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor’s yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans’ faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.
--Shakespaw
on House of Representatives turnover
An interesting “quotation of the day” from today’s NY Times (cf this article):
“There is a problem when the turnover in the United States House of Representatives is lower than it was in the Soviet Politburo.”
--Nathaniel Persily, an election law expert at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Intelligence, Voters, and the White House
"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, or self-respect, it is cruelly hard�
"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even a mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second or third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
—H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920