No one can deny that Russia fired some big rockets and placed satellites into orbit. But there's been a deluge of poppycock about 'miraculous' scientific advances that enabled them to do it. Much of this analysis reflects ignorance about rocketry.
While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.
Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst.
Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.
This is just rap. I'm not trying to make people think I'm some sort of scientific wizard or inspirational poet.
It was probably my parents who inspired me most. My father was a scientist and answered my scientific questions, while my mother took me on walks and showed me birds and plants. She also took me out at night and showed me the constellations and the aurora.
The brain process that results in a joke materializing where no joke was before remains a mystery. I'm not aware of any scholarly, scientific or neurological studies on the subject.
The problem for large scientific projects is to do something that is being done for the first time, balanced against cost, schedule. and promises to the government. That is a hard balancing act.
Just after graduation in 1966, like many of my contemporaries, I applied for research training at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps because his wife was a poet, Ira Pastan agreed to take me into his laboratory, despite my lack of scientific credentials.
Many Christians are raised believing that to be true to God's Word means to accept that the universe, Earth, and life were created in six 24-hour days, only a few thousand years ago. Most people lack the theological and scientific tools to think through the implications of this teaching.
As far as I'm aware, everybody in the shadow cabinet accepts that there's a compelling case on climate change and a strong scientific case.
The most pressing ethical question is to make sure that everything you do from a scientific standpoint is done for the ultimate good and positive issue for the people that you're caring about.
Scientific studies about relationships fascinate me, and I devour them hungrily, especially when they give big, fancy-sounding names to everyday experiences.
Jesus walking on water is an allegory, not fluid mechanics. God destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning, not a historical battle. Doubting Thomas is an example, not a person. The story of Noah, with all of its scientific and historical impossibilities, can be read the same way.
The unmerited fear of genetically modified organism crops threatens scientific advancements in biotechnology needed to meet the growing global demand for safe and affordable food.
When I was the NIH director, I often expressed envy of institute directors: they had the money and ran the scientific programmes.
An enormous amount of scientific language is metaphorical. We talk about a genetic code, where code originally meant a cipher; we talk about the solar system model of the atom as though the atom were like a sun and moon and planets.
Trauma and sexual abuse are two of our most pressing human and societal problems. They must be studied by unbiased scientific investigation rather than polarized by hysteria and politics.
After World War II, scientific research in the U.S. was well supported. In the 1960s, when I came to America, the sky was the limit, and this conducive atmosphere enabled many of us to pursue esoteric research that resulted in America winning the lion's share of Nobel Prizes.
I think of myself as a fairly logical, scientific and somewhat reserved person. Maura Isles, the Boston medical examiner who appears in five of my books, is me. Almost everything I use in describing her, from her taste in wine to her biographical data, is taken from my own family. Except I don't have a serial killer as a mother!
Among intellectuals who consider themselves 'scientific,' the phrase 'the nature of man' is apt to have the effect of a red flag on a bull.
While the finish given to our picture of the world by the theory of relativity has already been absorbed into the general scientific consciousness, this has scarcely occurred to the same extent with those aspects of the general problem of knowledge which have been elucidated by the quantum theory.
The space program is not only scientific in purpose but also is an expression of man's insistent determination to do the nearly impossible - to explore the unknown, even at great risk.
If you publish a scientific paper it is very hard to start a nationwide debate about something. If you do this in a movie, you can start a debate. We like to create a bridge between those two worlds - film and science.
I've had various experiences where I've been called by Hollywood studios to look at a script or comment on various scientific ideas that they're trying to inject into a story.
There has never been a verified scientific report that chelation therapy, a gluten-free diet, or anything else can cure autism.
I have been intimately involved in the techniques of genetic modification as a scientist since GMOs were first conceived. In that time, hundreds of studies and tests have been done on GMO safety - and we've seen no scientific evidence that GMOs are inherently more dangerous than crops produced by traditional plant breeding.
I am of the school that believes, for the most part, that gays are born and not made. That is, I believe - and there appears to be significant scientific evidence to back me up - that there is a genetic predisposition to be gay.
Since when did scientific evidence become a reason to shy away from ecological action just because it wasn't popular?
Many think of the sciences as merely a fund of knowledge. Journalists never ask scientists anything other than what the applications are of scientific breakthroughs. Interestingly, I doubt they ever ask a musician, writer, or actor the same question. I wonder why.
The Israeli military plays more than a critical role in defending the citizens of the Jewish state. It also plays an important social, scientific and psychological role in preparing its young citizens for the challenging task of being Israelis in a difficult world.
My father worked in a scientific lab where he designed and built glass instruments. He was regarded as brilliant at his job and once constructed a human brain in glass just to show off his skills.
I love stories, and my life is principally concentrated on stories, but not with a pretense of scientific precision.
The scientific effort to inform the public about landslide risks often runs head-on into powerful economic interests.
All science is based on models, and every scientific model comprises three distinct stages: statement of well-defined hypotheses; deduction of all the consequences of these hypotheses, and nothing but these consequences; confrontation of these consequences with observed data.
There's clearly a lot of Ludditism, and you see it in all the hysteria about every scientific story.
