Sunday, June 14, 2009

When a conjecture inspires new hopes or creates new fears, action is indicated. There is an important asymmetry between hope, which leads to actions which will test its basis, and fear, which leads to restriction of options frequently preventing any attempt at testing. As we know only too well, many of our hopes do not survive their tests. However, fears accumulate untested. Our inventory of untested fears has always made humanity disastrously vulnerable to thought control. Independent science’s greatest triumph [has been] the reduction of that vulnerability.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Quotable
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