“Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central earth. The hypothesis cannot be disproved but it is unwelcome and would be accepted only as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. […] But the unwelcome supposition of a favoured location must be avoided at all costs.”
Edwin Powell Hubble
“Now at first sight, all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe. There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty”
Stephen William Hawking
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreshadowing of an America in the time of my children or grandchildren – when the United States is a service and information economy; when Almost all major manufacturing industries have moved to other countries; when terrible technological powers are in the hands of too few, and no one representing the public interest can understand the issues; when people have lost the ability to set their own agenda. Lost or deliberately questioned by those in power; when, holding our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our vital faculties decline, in distinguishing between what feels good and what is true Unable, we go back to superstition and darkness, almost without noticing.
America’s downfall is most evident in the slow decay of real content in the most influential media, 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), credible presentations on lowest common denominator programming, pseudoscience and superstition, but especially From a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Dr. Carl Edward Sagan
“They defend the old theories by complicating things to the point of incomprehensibility.”
Fred Hoyle
“The problem of the source of a star’s energy will be considered, by a process of exhaustion we are driven to conclude that the only possible source of a star’s energy is subatomic yet it must be confessed that the only hypothesis shows little disposition to accommodate itself to the detailed requirements of observation, and a critic might count up a large number of fatal objections.”
Arthur Eddington
“So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.”
Nikolaus Kopernikus
“And remember Carol, the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens and all of it is a lie”
Wernher von Braun
“The earth is flat and stationary, while the sun, moon and stars are in constant motion. This is the Enlightenment of the World.”
John George Abizaid
“We know this by patient and long continued investigations – the surface of water is a LEVEL SURFACE. This is the key which is unlocking the minds of the people and letting in a flood of light upon the question of the shape of the earth. We know consequently that the surface of earth is a plane surface and that the earth itself can NOT be a globe.”
John Hampden
“The greatest triumphs of man were those in which his mind had to free itself from the influence of delusive appearances.[…] An unalterable rotational velocity thru all phases of planetary evolution is manifestly impossible. […] The truth is, the so-called “axial rotation” of the moon is a phenomenon deceptive alike to the eye and mind and devoid of physical meaning. […] The moon does rotate, not on its own, but about an axis passing thru the center of the earth, the true and only one.”
Nikola Tesla