Science

"You can beat 40 scholars with one fact, but you can't beat one idiot with 40 facts" Rumi

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Mark Twain

"We also tried this for a long time, to isolate viruses in cell cultures. We never succeeded. That's how it is for many labs around the world that have tried. Zhengli Shi is actually the only lab back in Wuhan that managed to do that, to isolate a virus for once.[....] I know Zhengli Shi used the ones in the lab for that as well. Here you have to say, when you do this, practically the first thing that happens with the SARS-2 virus is that this furin site in the virus is destroyed. So when we isolate SARS-2 virus in Vero cells from patients, that furin site goes away immediately because that's a selection disadvantage for the virus in cell culture." Christian Drosten

"To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. And so it is with science." Richard P. Feynman

"I'd go to the moon in a Nanosecond, but the Problem is that we no longer have that technology to do that anymore, we used to have it, but we destroyed it and it's a painful process to build it back again, but going to Mars should be one of the next series of steps that humans do. The first step should be going back to the Moon for a number of technical reasons and exploration reasons. And then after that Mars, maybe high orbit in Venus atmosphere maybe going to Europa. There's all kinds of targets to go to, places of interest in our solar system. The only limit to human future is in our own imagination." Don Pettit

"There is no vice which mankind carries to such wild extremes as that of avarice." Jonathan Swift

"Already in the 18th century, not to mention the present, the course of science as well as of faith was motivated less by the will to do good than by the interest of power." Max Horkheimer

"I’m aware this two page backgrounder & experimental proposal aims to show whether or not viruses exist, focussing on SARS-CoV-2. I’m a signatory because, having given a lot of thought to the entire proposition, I now believe it’s yet another of the lies to which we’ve been subject. In the case of scientists, even those in commercial drug discovery, have taken as fact that viruses exist without ever reviewing the original papers." Dr Mike Yeadon

"In this respect, it is interesting to contrast Einstein and Copernicus. Before Copernicus, people thought that the earth stood still and the heavens revolved about it once a day. Copernicus taught that “really” the earth rotates once a day, and the daily revolution of sun and stars is only “apparent.” Galileo and Newton endorsed this view, and many things were thought to prove it—for example, the flattening of the earth at the poles, and the fact that bodies are heavier there than at the equator. But in the modern theory the question between Copernicus and his predecessors is merely one of convenience; all motion is relative, and there is no difference between the two statements: “the earth rotates once a day” and “the heavens revolve about the earth once a day.” The two mean exactly the same thing, just as it means the same thing if I say that a certain length is six feet or two yards. Astronomy is easier if we take the sun as fixed than if we take the earth, just as accounts are easier in a decimal coinage. But to say more for Copernicus is to assume absolute motion, which is a fiction. All motion is relative, and it is a mere convention to take one body as at rest. All such conventions are equally legitimate, though not all are equally convenient." Bertrand Russell

"There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination." Daniel Dennett

"There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion." Daniel Dennett

"The most beautiful thing for me about Formula E is the great sound of the diesel generators that are used to charge the batteries of the racing cars!" Ulrich Baretzky

"We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely." Edward Osborne Wilson

"My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists." Nikola Tesla