Quotes from Thomas Hager

science at its best was a flower of Western culture, unbiased, apolitical, transnational, open, and progressive. It destroyed superstition and cant. It threw at least a little light into the darkness. And it worked.

science, properly used, could undo much of the damage men had done.

In the end, no one knew what caused madness.

Universities began learning the art of turning the insights of their researchers into large chunks of money by hiring more lawyers and making new kinds of deals, becoming experts in protecting intellectual property, installing startup incubators, and building research parks. Seen from this angle, it looks like universities and scientists aren't fighting against the profit motive; they've been infected by it.

I would call that field of play--the place in which humans test their natural limits and often break them--science.

their work was a way to understand the workings of the divine.