May 13, 2014 | Quotes, Survivalism
A while ago you had a chance to ask John McAfee about his past, politics, and what he has planned for the future. As usual, John answered with extreme frankness, with some interesting advice for anyone stuck at a checkpoint in the third world. Below you can read all his answers to
your questions.
Travel tips?
by timothy
John:
You’ve had the chance to travel (sometimes in extraordinary circumstances!) through some very interesting places, and I’m wondering if you have as a result any concrete advice or suggestions to give about intelligent traveling.
– Do you have anything you’d consider unusual or otherwise notably every-day carry gear?
– How do you keep documents safe / backed up / safe from prying eyes and fingers?
– Are there places that, however adventurous you are, you avoid because you consider them too dangerous?
McAfee: As all of my close friends know, I have not always been a drug free citizen. Prior to 1983 I was a synthesis of corporate manager and drug dealer. The drug dealer profession took priority, and for a period of time that was my only occupation. Well .. taking the drugs that I sold also became a principal occupation. I gave up taking drugs and dealing drugs in 1983.
During my drug dealing days I became adept at those talents required of a successful drug dealer: clandestine travel through the Third World countries that produce and transport the goods; dealing with corrupt officials; dealing with drug lords and drug traffickers; successfully passing checkpoints; bribery, and in emergencies, the methods of escape.
In order to make the most of your travels, you need to first understand that, throughout much of the Third World, there is a smoothly functioning “system” in place that has evolved over centuries. From the First World perspective it is a “corrupt” system, but that’s not a helpful word if you want to acquire the most effective attitude for dancing with it. I prefer “negotiable”. It focuses the mind on the true task at hand when dealing with officialdom and removes any unpleasant subconscious connotations. So if you can view the following tools and tips as negotiation guidelines it will help bring the necessary smile to your face when the situation requires one.
Press Credentials
The most powerful tool a traveler can possess is a Press card. It will allow you to completely bypass the “documentation” process if you have limited time or limited funds and don’t want to deal with it. I have dozens stashed in all my vehicles, in my wallet, in my pockets, in my boats.
I am paranoid about being caught without one when I need one. They have magical properties if the correct incantations are spoken while producing them. A sample incantation at a police checkpoint (this will work in any Third World country):
“Hi, I’m really glad to see you.” (produce the press card at this point). I’m doing a story on Police corruption in (fill in country name) and I would love to get a statement from an honest police officer for the story. It’s for a newspaper in the U.S. Would you be willing to go on record for the piece?” You can add or subtract magic words according to the situation. Don’t worry about having to actually interview the officer. No sane police person would talk to a reporter about perceived corruption while at the task of being perceived to be corrupt. He will politely decline and quickly wave you through. If you do find the rare idiot officer who wants to talk, ask a few pointed questions about his superiors and it will quickly awaken his sensibilities. He will send you on your way.
The press card is powerful, but has risks and limitations. Do not attempt this magic, for example, at a Federale checkpoint in Mexico on a desolate road late at night. You will merely create additional, and unpleasant work for the person assigned to dig the hole where they intend to place you.
Documentation
Documentation is the polite word for “cash”.
The real art of producing documentation is the subtle play of how much to produce. In some countries, a policeman makes less than a dollar an hour. At a checkpoint, a policeman will usually share his proceeds with the other officers lounging by the side of the road and with the police Chief. The Chief will get about 25% in countries like Colombia and Panama, so if there are three officers total, then a ten-dollar contribution will end up with about $2.50 in each person’s pocket – a good take for someone making about a dollar an hour in legitimate salary.
Nothing irks locals more than someone who produces documentation in excess of what is expected. It ruins the system for the rest of the population. The Police begin to expect more from everyone, and the populace is then burdened beyond any sense of reasonableness. I might mention that checkpoints for any given location in most countries are set up no more than once a week, and frequent travelers reach accommodations with the authorities so that they are not unnecessarily burdened to the point that they are single-handedly putting the policeman’s children through school. The police are, by and large, honest people with hearts, and few truly abuse the system.
So to give more than is reasonable is a crime against humanity. The following are some hard and fast formulas that I have learned from trial and error over the years:
Documentation is inversely proportional to traffic density – the higher the traffic, the less you pay, the lower the traffic the more you pay. This is simple economics: The police must make their personal quota from whatever traffic there is.
If you stop at a checkpoint and there are four or five cars in line, you can be assured that less than a couple of dollars will be expected from a Gringo. Smart folks carry a half dozen cold cokes and beers in a cooler in the backseat and simply reach around, grab one or the other and hand it out the window with a smile. In the late afternoon on a hot day, this will be received with far more appreciation than a few small coins. If you hand a cold drink to all of the officers, you could easily talk them into giving you a protective escort to the next town.
In low traffic areas, in addition to having to pay more, you will also entail more risk. It’s never good to travel lonely roads in Central America, unless you are very experienced or closely wired in to the authorities. However, if you’ve come down to do a dope score or are determined to visit Crucita or her sister in some remote village and have no other choice, then strictly adhere to the following:
Do not get out of the car, even if ordered to do so. Your car is your only avenue of escape. It’s a ton or more of steel capable of doing serious harm to anyone foolish enough to stand in front of it, and once underway is difficult to stop. The checkpoint police in Central America never chase anyone down, in spite of years of watching U.S. Television and action movies. It’s too much work, plus they could have an accident. It’s not worth it for an unknown quantity. And they won’t shoot, unless you’ve run over one of them while driving off. It makes noise and wastes a round that they must account for when they return to the station – creating potential problems with the higher-ups. Not that I recommend running. It’s just that outside of the car you have lost the only advantage you have.
Smile and, if possible, joke. Say something like: “I’d like to stay and chat but I’m in a hurry to meet a girl. Her husband will be back soon.” This will go a long way toward creating a shared communion with the officers and will elicit a shared-experience type of sympathy.
Don’t wait for them to talk. Take the initiative. Have your documentation ready as you pull up and simply present it to the policeman while beginning your patter similar to the above, or whatever patter is comfortable for you. Never hand cash directly. Slip it in inside your insurance papers, or some other paperwork relating to your car or your journey, with about an inch of the banknote discretely sticking out. I use a Cannon Ixus 530 setup manual with the front and back cover removed. It’s small, light, and looks like it could be important paperwork for almost anything.
Remember: 50% of the police who stop you in most Third World countries can’t read. This is a powerful piece of information for the wise.
Once the officer has removed the banknote, which will be immediate, reach out and retrieve your laptop manual (or whatever you choose to use), smile, wave and drive off immediately without asking permission, but slowly, without looking back. Doing the job and leaving quickly without appearing to hurry off is the key here. Don’t give them enough time to assess you.
The above is a fail-safe formula for back roads of Central America if adhered to explicitly. Expect to part with at least 20 bucks. If, on approaching the checkpoint, you judge the police body language to be insolent or agitated, change the twenty for a fifty.
If something goes awry and the above, for some reason, has not worked, then pretend stupidity. Ask them to repeat everything they say and act bewildered. If ordered to get out of the car, smile broadly and simply drive off. Again – slowly.
If drugs or other contraband are planted in your vehicle by one of the police while another has your attention (a very common occurrence), understand, above all, that there is a zero probability that you will be arrested, unless you add to the “offense” by pissing someone off or otherwise acting unwisely. The intent is to scare. Under no circumstances deny that it is yours. Say something like “Damn, I thought I left that at home”, or “That’s the second time I’ve been caught this week.” This will show them that you are a good natured player and will probably negotiate. Denying ownership of the contraband will be seen as confrontational – an attitude that brings high risk when dealing with Third World authorities. The “documentation”, however, need not be much. They have chosen an approach to making a living that is universally considered by the locals as “not fair play”, and they should not be unjustly rewarded for it. Sure, they did go to the effort of distracting you, and someone had to go to the trouble to plant the dope, so they deserve something, but $5 is the maximum you need to pay. If they ask for more, then you can safely become indignant. They will shut up. The locals won’t tolerate police that take too much unfair advantage of the system, and your obvious awareness of the correct protocols will alert them to potential trouble if they push things.
If you actually are carrying contraband, of any kind – drugs, guns, Taiwanese sex slaves – whatever, and are caught, then the actions that you take within the first few seconds of discovery will have a profound impact on the rest of your life. The reality is: You have been caught. The officers have options:
1. Arrest you and charge you, where you are likely to confess to other people about exactly what you were carrying and how much – thereby limiting the policemen’s ability to make off with much of the cache.
2. Come to some arrangement with you that is mutually beneficial and that does not include your demise, or create any undue risks to the officers’ jobs or safety.
Option 2 is obviously preferable. To anyone not fond of prisons, that is.
Your first order of business is to assess your situation. If you are in a town or even near one with reasonable traffic driving by, then the chances of your demise, or incurring harm to yourself, are virtually nil if you keep your wits about you. If you are on a lonely country road, and there is only one officer, or even two, your risks could be high, so you will be handicapped in your negotiations.
On your side, you have the option to go to jail and tell your story to lots of people, which generally restricts the officers’ abilities to make money on the encounter – the higher-ups will take it. On their side, they have the guns, and threats. Ignore the threats. You are fully cognizant of the fact that their sincere hope is that some accommodation can be reached that enriches their pockets and allows you to leave the area without compromising them.
So — first things first. Smile. There is no circumstance under which a smile will handicap you when dealing with authorities.
Be friendly in your speech and immediately and fully acknowledge your situation, and theirs. This puts them at ease and sets the framework for negotiation. Be polite but firm. Let them know that they will not be able to walk off with your entire stash, and do this early on. It creates more reasonable expectations in their minds. If your contraband is drugs, offer them a small hit while talking. It re-enforces, subconsciously, the idea that the dope is your possession and that they are partaking due entirely to your good will. If you are transporting sex slaves, then I must say first that I cannot possibly condone your chosen occupation, but -offering each one of the policemen a taste of the goods may well seal the deal without any additional cash thrown in.
It’s important to be firm without any semblance of hostility. If the policemen tell you, for example, that they are going to confiscate all of the goods, then, with an apologetic manner that implies an unfortunate certainty, say “I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible”. Shake your head sadly as if you had divulged: “My mom just died”. And this is the point to present them with an absurdly low offer. If you are carrying 20 keys of cocaine or a half ton of marijuana, then offer them $50. Alternatively, you could offer them a one ounce bag of the weed or a gram or so of the coke. If it’s sex slaves, tell them they can look at the bare breasts of one of the least attractive women (in parts of Southern Mexico, this might actually be sufficient).
They will be taken aback at your offer, but it will place any unreasonable expectations they may have in stark perspective. As a rule of thumb, if you are near a populated place, you will ultimately settle by parting with an amount of cash equal to about 10% of the wholesale value of the goods. On a road with infrequent and unpredictable traffic, maybe 20%. If you are on a desolate road, especially if the body language is not comforting, you may have to bite the bullet, give them the entire wad, plus your car, and ask for a ride to the bus station. Don’t expect the police to accept the drugs or contraband as payment if you are near a populated area. They would obviously be seen transferring the goods to their vehicles. If you are not carrying sufficient cash, then you are unprepared, and shouldn’t be doing shady deals in Central America.
Never display fear or hostility. Smile throughout, and crack what jokes you can.
Name Dropping
Knowing the name of the country’s Police Commissioner and Armed Forces Chief, and the Chief of Police for each county or town you will be driving through can be very helpful. Knowing all the mayor’s names will not hurt any either. Name-dropping is a powerful tool in the Third World, especially for gringos, if used appropriately. Telling a cop in America that you are friends with the mayor or the police chief will seldom help you avoid a traffic ticket, and may even increase the charges. In Central America, offending a Police Commissioner will immediately get a policeman fired, with no repercussions to the Commissioner, and, depending on the offense, may even get the officer “erased”. So it gives an officer serious pause when you say: “The drugs belong to Commissioner (insert name). I am delivering them to a friend for him”. If spoken with authority and condescension, they can have a dramatic effect. No policeman in his right mind would try to validate the story. Resident Gringos, for odd reasons, are prized as friends by wealthy and prominent locals, so it would not be out of the question to be close with the Country’s Police Commissioner. If the cop asks any specifics, like, how you know the Commissioner, pull out your cell phone and say: “I have the commissioner’s number, why don’t we call him and you can ask him yourself.” You need to have solid self-assurance, or at least some large cojones, to pull this off, but in a tough situation this can work miracles.
A small amount of research is necessary before using this approach. You need to know, for example, whether the police commissioner is really dealing drugs (almost all are). Every local inhabitant in the country will know this information (there are no secrets in the Third World). The policeman will certainly know.
You don’t have to be doing something illegal in order to use the name-dropping approach. It should work under any circumstances: You have no money; You are in a hurry and cant waste the time to answer questions; you are bored and just want to f*** with someone — whatever.
Generally, the tactic of planting drugs on people is only practiced in heavily trafficked tourist areas. The police in tourist areas are handicapped because tourists generally don’t “pay their due” to the police, or to any other functionary. Tourists consider it “corrupt” to have to pay policeman to do their jobs, or to pay them in order to have the freedom to drive down the street on checkpoint day. The police therefore are forced to resort to unethical means in order to make a living in these places.
Gifts
Gifts occupy a different strata in the system of negotiation. They are used when some future consideration is required, or after an official favor has been provided. Gifts can be small or large, depending on the circumstances and the wise person will have an ample supply ready for any event. I operated seven small businesses in Central America and socked an ample supply of gifts:
Favors, likewise, are part of the system. They have no negative connotation, and they require offers whose magnitude reflects the magnitude of the favor.
One common “favor” that is considered questionable is to gift an officer in the armed forces to provide armed support for a drug deal, a revenge raid, an armored car heist, or similar function. It’s a very common occurrence but it’s deemed to be morally sketchy by most of the populace. The reason for this, I believe, is the sense of unease created by the image of highly organized, insolent, largely illiterate men with fully automatic weapons catering to the whims of anyone with spare change. The general consensus is that the system of “negotiation” should stop at the gates of the military. The military should uphold the system, not practice it, as my friend and philosopher Paz once said. This is nothing more illogical than policemen as “officers of the peace”. The fact that SWAT teams exist and every policeman carries a gun and is trained in violent tactics, should alert us to the fact that practicing peace is not the means of choice for maintaining peace.
If you take the above advice to heart you should enjoy your adventures heartily.
Book and Movie?
by Anonymous Coward
Is Boston George still working on your biography? Have you thought about making your story into a movie? Who would you like to see play you, besides Charlie Sheen of course.
McAfee: George, as you probably know, is still in prison. Prison is an environment that abhors haste, and projects are drawn out for as long as possible so that the overwhelming amount of time on one’s hands can be efficiently consumed. I would expect the book to be out about the same time that George is out — in a few years, if it were being authored by him alone. There are multiple authors, however, each doing their part and I expect the book to be out shortly.
Warner Brothers has already announced a movie. The screenplay is based on the E-book by Josh Davis. Interesting story here: Josh Davis was approached by Conde Naste media June of 2012 and asked if he would be willing to write a story about me that could be turned into a movie. This was six months prior to the murder of Gregory Faul. Josh said yes and Wired Magazine, owned by Conde Naste, was chosen as the vehicle. Josh called me and asked if he could interview me for a Wired piece and I said “yes”. Had he told me it would be turned into a movie I would have said “no”. No one in their right mind would say “yes”. Movies require a number of elements in order to be successful. If your story does not have these elements, then they must be manufactured or inferred.
Josh came down and spent two weeks in Belize and a couple of days with me. Those couple of days has become “a significant part of a year” according to Davis’s resume today. He passes himself of as the “John McAfee” expert.
Impact Future Media is also doing a movie. I am co-operating fully with them, mostly because the CEO of the company, Francois Garcia, is Argentinian and I am too afraid of him not to co-operate. He is a nice man although not the sort of person you would want to piss off.
As to who should play me, I think we would all agree that Morgan Freeman is the obvious choice.
Google: Doing no harm?
by globaljustin
Mr. McAfee, thanks for taking questions! My question: Do you consider Google in its current incarnation to be a “good company”? I ask in the context of revelations about the level of Gmail snooping, Google bus controversy, Google Glass failure, “only criminals want privacy”, Larry Page refusing to donate to charity, Google Maps interface changes, etc. You used to be in security, so applying that experience & your recent public issues, do you “trust” Google?
McAfee: Good God what a question. First and foremost: I don’t trust anything or anyone. I’m not remotely cynical, I’m just old and I’ve seen a lot. I trust people to be human, meaning all the weaknesses known to humanity exist in all of us. And everyone has a price. For some people it may not be money. It may be a daughter or a wife, which is why Cartel operatives are so fond of kidnapping family members. If someone sends you your daughter’s ear, then to get the other ear back with daughter attached you might happily betray all of your friends. If not that, then maybe it is your reputation, or your job, or torture, or even your life. Everyone has a price. It’s always something. If the previous two axioms are taken as given, then clearly, you can trust no-one.
Companies are even worse. They have all of the weaknesses that humans possess (they are made up of humans after all) and absolutely none of the virtues. They are a derivative of profit, and profit is amoral.
Is Google good or bad. It’s good, because all of the information in the world is now at my fingertips, thanks to Google. It’s bad because it wants to track me and invade my privacy so that it can increase its profits. It’s good because it has streamlined the world around us and caused unimagined efficiencies. It’s bad because it co-operates with agencies that don’t have our best interests at heart. It’s good because it has created astonishing new industries. It’s bad because it controls the rankings of those industries and uses it’s own beliefs to moderate that ranking. It’s good because it allows me to make my own decisions about events rather than having to rely on the news and other media. It’s bad because the delivery of such information can be, and is, listed in ways that one opinion or the other can be highlighted. Etc. It’s good for Google stockholders. It’s bad for any competitor’s stockholders. It’s good for the realtors who rent or sell Google their needed office space. It’s bad for everyone else because rents go up. I hope I’ve answered your question.
Why didn’t you ask Intel to rebrand before?
by sandytaru
Seems like if you didn’t want to be associated with the software, you could have asked them to remove the name years ago.
McAfee: I did.
Any advice for Peter Norton?
by HornWumpus
what advice would you give to Pete to get his name off the second worst software on the planet?
McAfee: Yes. Grow a beard.
Re:Belize
by Anonymous Coward
Has there been any new developments or investigation into the fire that burned down your compound? Do you still maintain the government was involved? Since there was never charges brought against you in the murder case, would you go back?
McAfee: The fire was never investigated. Investigation as a method of solving crimes is a novel idea that has not yet caught on in Belize, or much of Central America for that matter. Police investigators are engaged primarily in uncovering indiscretions within the general population for which they can demand money for keeping their mouths shut – an intricate and beautiful art that reached its zenith with incarnation of J. Edgar Hoover here in in America.
What does happen, and it seems to work reasonably well, is that when a crime is committed, a random person who everyone believes should belong in jail is arrested. Sometimes more than one. If the person or persons, does not have an airtight alibi, such as being in attendance at some other jail during the time of the crime, or performing at a live concert with hundreds of people watching during the time of the crime, then the person, or persons, is charged and generally goes to jail. Exceptions are relatives and friends of powerful people who are never charged for anything under any circumstances, even if an entire town witnesses them engaging in any illegal act, including murder. Local judges are instructed in how to decide cases by the most powerful person in the town and it all seems to work smoothly and efficiently. In the case of the fire that consumed my property, a woman who was a neighbor of mine was arrested. She is a nice lady who happened to refuse the advances of the local political party representative and was chosen for discipline. I refused to press charges and she was released.
Of course the government was involved. And of course I would never go back.
Re:Belize
by Anonymous Coward
Whatever happened to your girlfriend Samantha? Why didn’t she leave the country with you after running from authorities?
McAfee: Within a few days of my exit from Guatemala she was happily engaged in the monumental task of seducing every male, and female, in Southern Guatemala. It was an extravagant objective and one which, given the population density of the region, had a limited chance of success, I felt. I ran the numbers by her but she tirelessly kept at this task, with no letup. She entertained me throughout with her stories and outrageously effective pickup lines. While she was thus entertaining herself I hired lawyer after lawyer to get her a visa with no success. Ultimately we mutually agreed to abandon the pursuit, whereupon she moved back to Belize and, with perseverance and courage, began the same process with Orange Walk district as her objective. There is some slight probability that she could succeed. After it was over I tattoo’d her name on my back, along with the name of total stranger who I met in the tattoo shop – and who I have not seen since.
Drug Cartel
by Anonymous Coward
I saw yesterday in USA Today that you were on the run because a drug cartel had a $600,000+ hit on you. If you got out of the business of doing and dealing drugs in the ’80s, why are the drug cartels still interested in you?
McAfee: For yourself, and anyone else who chose not to read the USA Today story (I don’t blame you, I also only read headlines in newspapers), this is the answer:
While I chose to get out of the drug business, the Government of Belize has not so chosen. My problem with the government is not drugs, but the fact that I uncovered rampant corruption of all kinds throughout the Government. The government is closely associated with cartels and has limited pull outside of Belize. So asking the Cartel to help them is a reasonable solution for them.
“Buy Belize” ads
by Ungrounded Lightning
An observation more than a question, but feel free to comment (especially if you have information on the subject). Starting shortly after your Belizian adventure I’ve noticed a rash of radio advertising, touting Belize as a tax haven and secure retirement site for those with substantial assets, and trying to sell land to them. These adds always strike me as funny. Since their authorities went after you, has Belize suffered a sudden drop in interest as a “safe haven” for the retiring well-off, or perhaps an exodus of others already there?
McAfee: Belize hired a Colombian based tourism crisis management firm, among other things they have been buying mass advertising in print, tv in order tochange their image.
Additionally they started an official rumour that I was a good thing for Belize, ever since I came into the news, real state has boomed in the country… we tracked down the original source of that press release and was issued by Remax Belize.
This is all I know.
Device Technology / Licensing
by pariah99
Hey John, I ended up spending a week sailing with friends in Belize last year over summer vacation – lovely place! We actually ended up sailing with a skipper who used to work with you, and he told me you had some wild times together! We didn’t spend a lot of time together, but he left a huge impression on me and my sailing buddies. Unfortunately, he very recently passed away, as I’m sure you’ve heard. Okay, that’s a bit besides the point, so on to my question: I was seriously wondering on what kind of technology your device incorporates. Does it use existing technologies like Tor, or is it based on a new protocol. If it’s a new thing, is the technology dependent on a number of exit nodes a la Tor, or does it depend on the number of peers using the software in order to obfuscate identifying information. In either case, will you consider releasing the software side of things under an open license?
McAfee: The captain’s name was Freddy Waite. The finest skipper that ever sailed. He could tell jokes and stories all day long and the tougher the sailing conditions the more fun he had. I’ve probably spent a thousand hours at the helm with Freddie, talking or just sitting together in silence. He was my full time captain for four years. It was a sad day for me when he recently died.
As to the technology — at this point, for competitive reasons, we are not discussing it. The rumor that it was a gift to me from aliens, is, however, totally false. However, our first privacy application is out on Google Play as of 3 days ago. It is called DCentral1. With DCentral1, you can see what information installed applications have been granted access to. One touch starts a scan that scores apps based off of their requested uses. It will tell you which apps listen to you by accessing the phone’s microphone, which apps watch you using the built in camera and video capabilities, which apps are reading your e-mails and text messages, which apps are sending messages or emails without alerting you, etc. You will be shocked at the results of a scan, I can guarantee you. You can customize the score value for each permission and receive a score tailored to your preferences. You can determine which applications you want to continue to trust after the scan. Those you distrust will be removed if you so choose.
With DCentral1, our goal is to offer more freedom to users through awareness. Information is currency in the digital age, and it’s important to know what information (and to whom) you’re giving away. DCentral1 is available for free on Android, and we hope to have it available on iOS in the near future!
Can gov backed spyware last in the wild?
by AHuxley
We have seen huge efforts by contractors to sell malware with key logging or tracking to different govs using deep insights into consumer OS over many years. With quality AV efforts from around the world and more realtime networked behaviour analysis who is winning the dissident watching game?
McAfee: As always, the battle tilts first one way then the other. If your question is: “Will there ever be an ultimate winner?”, the answer is no. The same tools are available to each side, just as soon as one side steals the newer tools from the other side, so there is no way for either side to maintain the upper hand. The white hats have the advantage of numbers, support and the fact that they can co-operate openly. The dark hats have the advantage of relative anonymity and the never-ending support of dissatisfied people everywhere.
Politics?
by Anonymous Coward
Did anyone from the GOP contact you about Obamacare or were they just using your name. Have they talked to you about running for office or has your stance on Snowden turned them off? Would you consider running as a third party candidate?
McAfee: The attorney for the House Ways and Means Committee contacted me and asked if I would help. I said “no”. I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot.
via Slashdot
Jan 26, 2012 | Quotes
Archimedes
(ca. 235 bc) b. Syracuse
Concerning levers
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.
Asimov, Isaac
(1920-1992) b. Petrovichi, Russia.
(With reference to a correspondent)
The young specialist in English Lit, …lectured me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern “knowledge” is that it is wrong.
… My answer to him was, “… when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
Isaac Asimov,The Relativity of Wrong, Kensington Books, New York, 1996, p 226. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Asimov, Isaac
(1920-1992) b. Petrovichi, Russia.
At two-tenths the speed of light, dust and atoms might not do significant damage even in a voyage of 40 years, but the faster you go, the worse it is–space begins to become abrasive. When you begin to approach the speed of light, hydrogen atoms become cosmic-ray particles, and they will fry the crew. …So 60,000 kilometers per second may be the practical speed limit for space travel.
Isaac Asimov, Sail On! Sail On! In The Relativity of Wrong, Kensington Books, New York, 1996, p 220. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Bacon, Francis
(1561-1626) b. London, England
For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtilities, which humour of vain supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato… But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the securest information; as may well be expressed in the tale… of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not see the water in the stars. So it cometh often to pass, that mean and small things discover great, better than great can discover the small.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, J.M. Dent and Son, London, England, 1973, pp 71-72. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Bacon, Francis
The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy (science); for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and disgested. Therefore, from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never been made), much may be hoped.
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Liberal Arts Press, Inc., New York, p 93. (5) Available from Amazon.com
Bierce, Ambrose
(1842-?1914) b. Meggs Co., Ohio
An inventor is a person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, Dover Publications, NY, 1958, p 70. (3) Available from Amazon.com
Binet, Alfred
(1857-1911) b. France
On his intelligence scale
The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of the intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured.
Quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton and Co., Ltd, NY, 1996, p 181. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Boltzman, Ludwig
(1844-1906) b Vienna, Austria
The most ordinary things are to philosophy a source of insoluble puzzles. With infinite ingenuity it constructs a concept of space or time and then finds it absolutely impossible that there be objects in this space or that processes occur during this time… the source of this kind of logic lies in excessive confidence in the so-called laws of thought.
Ludwig Boltzmann. Populaere Schriften Essay 19, Ludwig Boltzmann, Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems, B. McGuinness (ed) Reidel, Dordrecht, 1974, p 64. (7)
Boltzman, Ludwig
To go straight to the deepest depth, I went for Hegel; what unclear thoughtless flow of words I was to find there! My unlucky star led me from Hegel to Schopenhauer … Even in Kant there were many things that I could grasp so little that given his general acuity of mind I almost suspected that he was pulling the reader’s leg or was even an imposter.
D. Flamm. Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 14: 257 (1983). (7)
Curie, Marie
(1867-1934) b. Warsaw, Poland (n�e Maria Sklodowska)
Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit.
Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.
Eve Curie (translated by Vincent Sheean), Madame Curie, Pocket books, Simon and Schuster, New york, 1946, pp 352-253. (7) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Churchill, Winston, Spencer
(1874-1965) b. Malborough, England
Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University education used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. … These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with.They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. … I always rested on the following argument… We look up to the sky and see the sun. Our eyes are dazzled and our senses record the fact. So here is this great sun standing apparently on no better foundation than our physical senses. But happily there is a method, apart altogether from our physical senses, of testing the reality of the sun. It is by mathematics. By means of prolonged processes of mathematics, entirely separate from the senses, astronomers are able to calculate when an eclipse will occur. They predict by pure reason that a black spot will pass across the sun on a certain day. You go and look, and your sense of sight immediately tells you that their calculations are vindicated. So here you have the evidence of the senses reinforced by the entirely separate evidence of a vast independent process of mathematical reasoning. We have taken what is called in military map-making “a cross bearing.” … When my metaphysical friends tell me that the data on which the astronomers made their calculations, were necessarily obtained originally through the evidence of the senses, I say, “no.” They might, in theory at any rate, be obtained by automatic calculating-machines set in motion by the light falling upon them without admixture of the human senses at any stage. When it is persisted that we should have to be told about the calculations and use our ears for that purpose, I reply that the mathematical process has a reality and virtue in itself, and that once discovered it constitutes a new and independent factor. I am also at this point accustomed to reaffirm with emphasis my conviction that the sun is real, and also that it is hot–in fact hot as Hell, and that if the metaphysicians doubt it they should go there and see.
Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life, Fontana, London, 1972, pp 123-124. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Churchill, Winston S.
…man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.
Quoted in: Irving Klotz, Bending perception, a book review, Nature, 1996, Volume 379, p 412 (1).
Crick, Francis
(1916-) b. Northampton, England
When the war finally came to an end, I was at a loss as to what to do… I took stock of my qualifications. A not-very-good degree, redeemed somewhat by my achievements at the Admiralty. A knowledge of certain restricted parts of magnetism and hydrodynamics, neither of them subjects for which I felt the least bit of enthusiasm. No published papers at all… Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and an ability to turn my hand to new things… Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice…
Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, Basic Books, New York, 1988, pp 15-16. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Cuppy, Will
1884-1949
Some fishes become extinct, but Herrings go on forever. Herrings spawn at all times and places and nothing will induce them to change their ways. They have no fish control. Herrings congregate in schools, where they learn nothing at all. They move in vast numbers in May and October. Herrings subsist upon Copepods and Copepods subsist upon Diatoms and Diatoms just float around and reproduce. Young Herrings or Sperling or Whitebait are rather cute. They have serrated abdomens. The skull of the Common or Coney Island Herring is triangular, but he would be just the same anyway. (The nervous system of the Herring is fairly simple. When the Herring runs into something the stimulus is flashed to the forebrain, with or without results.)
Will Cuppy, How to Become Extinct, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984, p. 13. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Darwin, Charles
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree.
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, John Murray, London, 1859. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Davy, Sir Humphrey
Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument. The native intellectual powers of men in different times are not so much the causes of the different success of their labours, as the peculiar nature of the means and artificial resources in their possession.
Thomas Hager, Force of Nature, Simon ans Schuster, New York, 1995, p 86. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Drake, Frank
(1930-) b. Chicago, Illinois
“I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe is listening to us,” Jean Giraudoux wrote in The Madwoman of Chaillot, “and that every word we say echoes to the remotest star.” That poetic paranoia is a perfect description of what the Sun, as a gravitational lens, could do for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Frank Drake and Dava Sobel, Is Anyone Out There? Dell Publishing, New York, 1994, p.232. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Dyson, Freeman
(On the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration)
The essential fact which emerges … is that the three smallest and most active reservoirs ( of carbon in the global carbon cycle), the atmosphere, the plants and the soil, are all of roughly the same size. This means that large human disturbance of any one of these reservoirs will have large effects on all three. We cannot hope either to understand or to manage the carbon in the atmosphere unless we understand and manage the trees and the soil too.
Freeman Dyson, From Eros to Gaia, Penguin Books, London, New York, 1993, pp 132-133. Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Dyson, Freeman
The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York.
Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, p 135. Available from Amazon.com
Eddington, Sir Arthur
(1882-1944) b. England
For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure.
Sir Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science, Ann Arbor Paperbacks, The University of Michigan Press, 1958, pp 9-10. Available from Amazon.com
Eddington, Sir Arthur
(1882-1944) b. England
Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations:
(1) No sea-creature is less than two inches long.
(2) All sea-creatures have gills.
These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it.
In applying this analogy, the catch stands for the body of knowledge which constitutes physical science, and the net for the sensory and intellectual equipment which we use in obtaining it. The casting of the net corresponds to observation; for knowledge which has not been or could not be obtained by observation is not admitted into physical science.
An onlooker may object that the first generalisation is wrong. “There are plenty of sea-creatures under two inches long, only your net is not adapted to catch them.” The icthyologist dismisses this objection contemptuously. “Anything uncatchable by my net is ipso facto outside the scope of icthyological knowledge. In short, “what my net can’t catch isn’t fish.” Or–to translate the analogy–“If you are not simply guessing, you are claiming a knowledge of the physical universe discovered in some other way than by the methods of physical science, and admittedly unverifiable by such methods. You are a metaphysician. Bah!”
Sir Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science, Ann Arbor Paperbacks, The University of Michigan Press, 1958, p 16. Available from Amazon.com
Einstein, Albert
(1879-1955) b. Germany
(To a student)
Dear Miss —
I have read about sixteen pages of your manuscript … I suffered exactly the same treatment at the hands of my teachers who disliked me for my independence and passed over me when they wanted assistants … keep your manuscript for your sons and daughters, in order that they may derive consolation from it and not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them. … There is too much education altogether.
Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, The Wisdom Library, New York, 1949, pp 21-22. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Einstein, Albert
(Written in old age) I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family.
When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.
Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
Quoted in C.P. Snow, Variety of Men, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, U.K. 1969, p 77. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Feynman, Richard P.
(1918-1988) b. Far Rockaway, New York
What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school… It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see my physics students don’t understand it… That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.
Richard P. Feynman, QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Penguin Books, London, 1990, p 9. (1) Different edition available from Amazon.com
Frisch, Max
(1911-) b. Switzerland
Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we do not experience it.
Rollo May, The Cry for Myth, Norton, New York, p 57. (4) ;Available from Amazon.com
Gell-Mann, Murray
In 1963, when I assigned the name “quark” to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been “kwork.” Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word “quark” in the phrase “Three quarks for Muster Mark.” Since “quark” (meaning, for one thing, the cry of a gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with “Mark,” as well as “bark” and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as “kwork.” But the book represents the dreams of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the “portmanteau words” in Through the Looking Glass. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry “Three quarks for Muster Mark” might be “Three quarts for Mister Mark,” in which case the pronunciation “kwork” would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.
Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar, W.H. Freeman, New York, 1994, pp 180-181. (1)
Hawking, Stephen W.
(1942-) b. Oxford, England
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam, NY, 1988, p 174. Available from Amazon.com
Hawking, Stephen W.
There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.
Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam, NY, 1988, p 157. Available from Amazon.com
Ingram, Jay W.
I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain.
An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a “quarter-metre square.” That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven’t seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist‘s poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don’t know, but I’m on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field.
Jay Ingram, The Burning House, Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, U.K., 1995 p 11.
John Paul II, Pope (Karol Wojtyla)
(1920-) b. Wadowice, Poland
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
James Reston, Galileo, A Life, HarperCollins, NY, 1994, p 461. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Johnson, George
The weapons laboratory of Los Alamos stands as a reminder that our very power as pattern finders can work against us, that it is possible to discern enought of the universe’s underlying order to tap energy so powerful that it can destroy its discoverers or slowly poison them with its waste.
George Johnson Fire in the Mind, Vintage Books, New York, 1996, p 326. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Johnson, Samuel, Dr.
(1709-1784) b. Lichfield, England
Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.
James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 3rd Edn., Malone, London, 1799 (Abridged Edn., The New American Library, NY, 1968, p 192.) Available from Amazon.com
Kauffman, Stuart
Life emerged, I suggest, not simple, but complex and whole, and has remained complex and whole ever since�not because of a mysterious �lan vital, but thanks to the simple, profound transformation of dead molecules into an organization by which each molecule’s formation is catalyzed by some other molecule in the organization. The secret of life, the wellspring of reproduction, is not to be found in the beauty of Watson-Crick pairing, but in the achievement of collective catalytic closure. So, in another sense, life�complex, whole, emergent�is simple after all, a natural outgrowth of the world in which we live.
Stuart Kauffman At Home in the Universe, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp 47-48. Available from Amazon.com
Kauffman, Stuart
If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order, Yet who seeing the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all.
Stuart Kauffman At Home in the Universe, Oxford University Press, 1995, p 112. Available from Amazon.com
Kauffman, Stuart
Pick up a pinecone and count the spiral rows of scales. You may find eight spirals winding up to the left and 13 spirals winding up to the right, or 13 left and 21 right spirals, or other pairs of numbers. The striking fact is that these pairs of numbers are adjacent numbers in the famous Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21… Here, each term is the sum of the previous two terms. The phenomenon is well known and called phyllotaxis. Many are the efforts of biologists to understand why pinecones, sunflowers, and many other plants exhibit this remarkable pattern. Organisms do the strangest things, but all these odd things need not reflect selection or historical accident. Some of the best efforts to understand phyllotaxis appeal to a form of self-organization. Paul Green, at Stanford, has argued persuasively that the Fibonacci series is just what one would expects as the simplest self-repeating pattern that can be generated by the particular growth processes in the growing tips of the tissues that form sunflowers, pinecones, and so forth. Like a snowflake and its sixfold symmetry, the pinecone and its phyllotaxis may be part of order for free
Stuart Kauffman At Home in the Universe, Oxford University Press, 1995, p 151. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Kaku, Michio
It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct.
Michio Kaku Hyperspace, Oxford University Press, 1995, p 263. (1)Available from Amazon.com
Kaku, Michio
There are many examples of old, incorrect theories that stubbornly persisted, sustained only by the prestige of foolish but well-connected scientists. … Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experiment exposed their incorrectness. .. Thus the yeoman work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.
Michio Kaku Hyperspace, Oxford University Press, 1995, p 263. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Kealey, Terence
There is a central myth about British science and economic growth, and it goes like this: science breeds wealth, Britain is in economic decline, therefore Britain has not done enough science. Actually, it is easy to show that a key cause of Britain’s economic decline has been that the government has funded too much science…
Post-war British science policy illustrates the folly of wasting money on research. The government decided, as it surveyed the ruins of war-torn Europe in 1945, that the future lay in computers, nuclear power and jet aircraft, so successive administrations poured money into these projects–to vast technical success. The world’s first commercial mainframe computer was British, sold by Ferrranti in 1951; the world’s first commercial jet aircraft was British, the Comet, in service in 1952; the first nuclear power station was British, Calder Hall, commissioned in 1956; and the world’s first and only supersonic commercial jet aircraft was Anglo-French, Concorde, in service in 1976.
Yet these technical advances crippled us economically, because they were so uncommercial. The nuclear generation of electricity, for example, had lost 2.1 billion pounds by 1975 (2.1 billion pounds was a lot then); Concord had lost us, alone, 2.3 billion pounds by 1976; the Comet crashed and America now dominates computers. Had these vast sums of money not been wasted on research, we would now be a significantly richer country.
Terence Kealey Wasting Billions, the Scientific Way, The Sunday Times, October 13, 1996. (1)
Keynes, John Maynard
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
Quoted in: K. Eric Drexler Engines of Creation: the Coming Era of Nanotechnology, Bantam, New York, 1987, p 231. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Lewis, C.S.
(1898-1963) b. Ireland
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. for magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious–such as digging up and mutilating the dead.
If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe’s Faustus, the similarity is striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls. In the same spirit, Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself… The true object is to extend Man’s power to the performance of all things possible. He rejects magic because it does not work; but his goal is that of the magician…
No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power; in every mixed movement the efficacy comes from the good elements not from the bad. But the presence of bad elements in not irrelevant to the direction the efficacy takes. It might be going too far to say that the modern scientific movement was tainted from its birth; but I think it would be true to say that it was born in an unhealthy neighbourhood and at an inauspicious hour. Its triumphs may have been too rapid and purchased at too high a price: reconsideration, and something like repentance, may be required.
Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man, Collins, Fount Paperback, 1978, p. 46. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Leakey, Richard and Roger Lewin
It has taken biologists some 230 years to identify and describe three quarters of a million insects; if there are indeed at least thirty million, as Erwin (Terry Erwin, the Smithsonian Institute) estimates, then, working as they have in the past, insect taxonomists have ten thousand years of employment ahead of them. Ghilean Prance, director of the Botanical Gardens in Kew, estimates that a complete list of plants in the Americas would occupy taxonomists for four centuries, again working at historical rates.
Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, 1995, The Sixth Extinction, Anchor, New York, pp 122-123. Available from Amazon.com
Lippmann, Walter
Without offering any data on all that occurs between conception and the age of kindergarten, they announce on the basis of what they have got out of a few thousand questionnaires that they are measuring the hereditary mental endowment of human beings. Obviously, this is not a conclusion obtained by research. It is a conclusion planted by the will to believe. It is, I think, for the most part unconsciously planted … If the impression takes root that these tests really measure intelligence, that they constitute a sort of last judgment on the child’s capacity, that they reveal “scientifically” his predestined ability, then it would be a thousand times better if all the intelligence testers and all their questionnaires were sunk in the Sargasso Sea.
In the course of a debate with Lewis Terman: quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton and Co., Ltd, NY, 1996, p 181. (1)
Lucretius
(99 B.C.-55 B.C.) b. Rome
(On the temperature of water in wells)
The reason why the water in wells becomes colder in summer is that the earth is then rarefied by the heat, and releases into the air all the heat-particles it happens to have. So, the more the earth is drained of heat, the colder becomes the moisture that is concealed in the ground. On the other hand, when all the earth condenses and contracts and congeals with the cold, then, of course, as it contracts, it squeezes out into the wells whatever heat it holds.
Lucretius On the nature of things (De Rerum Natura), Sphere Books, London, 1969, p. 233. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis)
(1880-1956) b. Baltimore, MD
The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity and the desire to do good. The latter is put high above the former, and yet it is the former that moves one of the most useful men the human race has yet produced: the scientific investigator. What actually urges him on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes.
Mencken, H.L., Reprinted in A Mencken Crestomathy, Vintage Books, New York, 1982, p. 12, first printed in the Smart Set, Aug. 1919, pp 60-61. (1)
Michelson, Albert, Abraham
(1852-1931) b. Germany
(In 1903)
The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.
Quoted by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield in The Arrow of Time, Flamingo, London 1991, p 67. Available from Amazon.com
Mill, John Stuart
The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious.
Quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton and Co., Ltd, NY, 1996, p 181. (1)
Monod, Jacques
Biology occupies a position among the sciences at once marginal and central. Marginal because–the living world constituting but a tiny and very “special” part of the universe–it does not seem likely that the study of living beings will ever uncover general laws applicable outside the biosphere. But if the ultimate aim of the whole of science is indeed, as I believe, to clarify man’s relationship to the universe, then biology must be accorded a central position…
Jacques Monod Chance and Necessity Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1971, p xi. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Newton, Isaac
(1642-1727) b. Woolsthorpe, England
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
On how he made discoveries
By always thinking unto them. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open little by little into the full light.
E.N. da C. Andrade, Sir Isaac Newton, His Life and Work, Doubleday Anchor, New York, 1950, p. 35. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Pasteur, Louis
(1822-1892) b. Dôle, France
Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.
René Dubos, Pasteur and Modern Science, Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1960, p. 145. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Quoted in H. Eves Return to Mathematical Circles, Prindle, Wever and Schmidt, Boston, 1988. (2) Available from Amazon.com
Pauling, Linus
(1901-1994) b. Portland, Oregon
I recognize that many physicists are smarter than I am–most of them theoretical physicists. A lot of smart people have gone into theoretical physics, therefore the field is extremely competitive. I console myself with the thought that although they may be smarter and may be deeper thinkers than I am, I have broader interests than they have.
Linus Pauling, The Meaning of Life, Edited by David Friend and the editors of Life, Little Brown, New York, 1990, p. 69. (6)
Polanyi, John C.
(1929-) b. Berlin, Germany
(Concerning the allocation of research funds) It is folly to use as one’s guide in the selection of fundamental science the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)… despise utility. But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified after the making of discoveries, rather than before.
John C. Polanyi. Excerpt from the keynote address to the Canadian Society for the Weizmann Institute of Science, Toronto June 2, 1996.
Polanyi, John C.
Faced with the admitted difficulty of managing the creative process, we are doubling our efforts to do so. Is this because science has failed to deliver, having given us nothing more than nuclear power, penicillin, space travel, genetic engineering, transistors, and superconductors? Or is it because governments everywhere regard as a reproach activities they cannot advantageously control? They felt that way about the marketplace for goods, but trillions of wasted dollars later, they have come to recognize the efficiency of this self-regulating system. Not so, however, with the marketplace for ideas.
John C. Polanyi In Martin Moskovits (Ed.), Science and Society, the John C. Polanyi Nobel Lareates Lectures, Anansi Press, Concord, Ontario, 1995, p 8. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Postman, Neil
Educators may bring upon themselves unnecessary travail by taking a tactless and unjustifiable position about the relation between scientific and religious narratives. We see this, of course, in the conflict concerning creation science. Some educators representing, as they think, the conscience of science act much like those legislators who in 1925 prohibited by law the teaching of evolution in Tennessee. In that case, anti-evolutionists were fearful that a scientific idea would undermine religious belief. Today, pro-evolutionists are fearful that a religious idea will undermine scientific belief. The former had insufficient confidence in religion; the latter insufficient confidence in science. The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods and have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other.
Neil Postman, The End of Education, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1995, p 107. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Postman, Neil
(19??-) b. New York, USA
“The scientific method,” Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, “is nothing but the normal working of the human mind.” That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes.
Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry–is not even a “subject”–but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning.
Neil Postman, The End of Education, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995, p 68. Available from Amazon.com
Russell, Bertrand, Arthur, William
(1872-1970) b. England
Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself… When we compare the (present) human population of the globe with… that of former times, we see that “chemical imperialism” has been… the main end to which human intelligence has been devoted.
Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Philosophy, Meridian Books, Cleveland and New York, 1960, pp 31-32. (1) Newer edition available from Amazon.com
Russell, Bertrand, Arthur, William
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, Allen and Unwin, London, 1979, p 512. (6) Available from Amazon.com
Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)
(1905-1980) b. Leicester, England
…Einstein, twenty-six years old, only three years away from crude privation, still a patent examiner, published in the Annalen der Physik in 1905 five papers on entirely different subjects. Three of them were among the greatest in the history of physics. One, very simple, gave the quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect–it was this work for which, sixteen years later he was awarded the Nobel prize. Another dealt with the phenomenon of Brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement of tiny particles suspended in a liquid: Einstein showed that these movements satisfied a clear statistical law. This was like a conjuring trick, easy when explained: before it, decent scientists could still doubt the concrete existence of atoms and molecules: this paper was as near direct proof of their concreteness as a theoretician could give. The third paper was the special theory of relativity, which quietly amalgamated space, time and matter into one fundamental unity.
This last paper contains no references and quotes no authority. All of them are written in a style unlike any other theoretical physicist’s. They contain very little mathematics. There is a good deal of verbal commentary. The conclusions, the bizarre conclusions, emerge as though with the greatest of ease: the reasoning is unbreakable. It looks as though he had reached the conclusions by pure thought, unaided, without listening to the opinions of others. To a surprisingly large extent, that is precisely what he had done.
It is pretty safe to say that, so long as physics lasts, no one will again hack out three major breakthroughs in one year.
C.P. Snow, Variety of Men, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, U.K. 1969, pp 85-86. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Szent-Györgyi, Albert
(1893-1984) b. Hungary
Basic research may seem very expensive. I am a well-paid scientist. My hourly wage is equal to that of a plumber, but sometimes my research remains barren of results for weeks, months or years and my conscience begins to bother me for wasting the taxpayer’s money. But in reviewing my life’s work, I have to think that the expense was not wasted. Basic research, to which we owe everything, is relatively very cheap when compared with other outlays of modern society. The other day I made a rough calculation which led me to the conclusion that if one were to add up all the money ever spent by man on basic research, one would find it to be just about equal to the money spent by the Pentagon this past year.
Albert Szent-Györgyi, The Crazy Ape, Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1971, p 72. (6) Available from Amazon.com
Szent-Györgyi, Albert
Our nervous system developed for one sole purpose, to maintain our lives and satisfy our needs. All our reflexes serve this purpose. this makes us utterly egotistic. With rare exceptions people are really interested in one thing only: themselves. Everybody, by necessity, is the center of his own universe.
When the human brain took its final shape, say, 100,000 years ago, problems and solutions must have been exceedingly simple. There were no long-range problems and man had to grab any immediate advantage. The world has changed but we are still willing to sell more distant vital interests for some minor immediate gains. Our military industrial complex, which endangers the future of mankind, to a great extent owes its stability to the fact that so may people depend on it for their living.
This holds true for all of us, including myself. When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul.
Albert Szent-Györgyi, The Crazy Ape, Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1971, p 72. (6) Available from Amazon.com
Turing, Alan, Mathison
(1912-1954) b. London, England
(1943, New York: the Bell Labs Cafeteria) His high pitched voice already stood out above the general murmur of well-behaved junior executives grooming themselves for promotion within the Bell corporation. Then he was suddenly heard to say: “No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I’m after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.”
Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing the Enigma of Intelligence, Unwin Hyman, London, 1983, p 251. (1)
Twain, Mark (Clemens, Samuel, Langhorne)
(1835-1910) b. Florida, Missouri
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal… In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh–not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, A Fawcett Crest Book, Greenwich, Conn., 1962, pp 180-181. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Watson, Thomas (Founder of IBM)
I think there’s a world market for about five computers.
Quoted by Charles Hard Townes In Martin Moskovits (Ed.), Science and Society, the John C. Polanyi Nobel Lareates Lectures, Anansi Press, Concord, Ontario, 1995, p 8. (1) Available from Amazon.com
Woolley, Richard (U.K. Astronomer Royal)
(In 1956, one year before Sputnik)
Space travel is utter bilge.
Quoted by Charles Hard Townes In Martin Moskovits (Ed.), Science and Society, the John C. Polanyi Nobel Lareates Lectures, Anansi Press, Concord, Ontario, 1995, p 8. (1) Available from Amazon.com
List of Contributors
The number in parenthesis following a quotation identifies the contributor in the following numbered list.
(1) The Editor
(2) James K. Love ([email protected]) and William D. Ross ([email protected])
(3) Bruce Miller ([email protected])
(4) Cited by Neil Postman in The End of Education, Alfred Knopf, NY, 1995, p 10.
(5) Dr. John Hetherington, Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901-6502, USA, “[email protected].”
(6) Cited by Thomas Hager in Force of Nature, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995.
(7) Cited by Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield in The Arrow of Time, Flamingo, London 1991
Compiled and edited by Alfred Burdett
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