100+ Gerald Holton Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

To this day, we see all around us the Promethean drive to omnipotence through technology and to omniscience through science. The effecting of all things possible and the knowledge of all causes are the respective primary imperatives of technology and of science. But the motivating imperative of society continues to be the very different one of its physical and spiritual survival. It is now far less obvious than it was in Francis Bacon's world how to bring the three imperatives into harmony, and how to bring all three together to bear on problems where they superpose.

source: - Gerald James Holton (1986). “The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays”, p.183, CUP Archive

Topics: Spiritual, Knowledge, Technology, Omniscience, Imperatives

quote in the sciences we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with the giants on gerald holton Quotes

The flight of most members of a profession to the high empyrean, where they can work peacefully on purely scientific problems, isolated from the turmoil of real life, was perhaps quite appropriate at an earlier stage of science; but in today's world it is a luxury we cannot afford.

source: - Gerald James Holton (1998). “The Scientific Imagination: With a New Introduction”, p.250, Harvard University Press

Topics: Real, Luxury, Research

If the layman cannot participate in decision making, he will have to turn himself over, essentially blind, to a hermetic elite. ... [The fundamental question becomes] are we still capable of self-government and therefore freedom? Margaret Mead wrote in a 1959 issue of Daedalus about scientists elevated to the status of priests. Now there is a name for this elevation, when you are in the hands of-one hopes-a benevolent elite, when you have no control over your political decisions. From the point of view of John Locke, the name for this is slavery.

source: - "Where is Science Taking Us? Gerald Holton Maps the Possible Routes". The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 18, 1981.

Topics: Freedom, Names, Issues, Benevolent, Layman

In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side-by-side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

Topics: Intellectual, Giants, Sides

Persons living in this modern world who do not know the basic facts that determine their very existence, functioning, and surroundings, are living in a dream world. Such persons are, in a very real sense, not sane.

source: - Gerald James Holton (1988). “Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein”, p.464, Harvard University Press

Topics: Dream, Real, World

Even in the best times, managing science has been compared to herding cats; it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all.

Topics: Cat, Done, Wells, Herding Cats

InspiringQuotes

Gerald Holton Quotes:

famous quotes

Related Authors

Abraham Pais

B. F. Skinner

Banesh Hoffmann

David C. Cassidy

Drew Gilpin Faust

Edward Victor Appleton

Ernst Mach

George Sarton

Hans Reichenbach

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

Isidor Isaac Rabi

John R. Platt

Joseph Campbell

Joseph Lovering

Joseph Rotblat

Kenneth W. Ford

Max Born

Mircea Eliade

Nicolaas Bloembergen

Owen Gingerich

Percy Williams Bridgman

Peter Galison

Robert Andrews Millikan

Robert P. Crease

Sheldon Lee Glashow

Steven Weinberg

Authors starting with Letter

Topics starting with Letter