Quotes About Complexity

But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.

We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster

I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed.

Black holes collect problems faster than they collect matter.

A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.

There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which all the scientists can retire. And because this is so, the world is far more interesting, both

On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum.

It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life; any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones…Thus evolution by addition and the functional preservation of the preexisting structure must occur for one of two reasons-either the old function is required as well as the new one, or there is no way of bypassing the old system that is consistent with survival.

The same few dozen organic molecules are used over and over again in biology for the widest variety of functions.

Because science carries us toward an understanding of how the world is, rather than how we would wish it to be, its findings may not in all cases be immediately comprehensible or satisfying. It may take a little work to restructure our mindsets. Some of science is very simple. When it gets complicated, that's usually because the world is complicated—or because we're complicated.

En lugar de juzgar a la gente por sus méritos y defectos individuales, nos concentramos en un par de detalles de información sobre ellos y a continuación los colocamos en una serie de casillas previamente establecidas. Con eso nos ahorramos el esfuerzo de pensar, al precio en muchos casos de cometer una profunda injusticia.

Some of science is very simple. When it gets complicated, that's usually because the world is complicated—or because we're complicated. When we shy away from it because it seems too difficult (or because we've been taught so poorly), we surrender the ability to take charge of our future. We are disenfranchised. Our self-confidence erodes.

We live in a complex age where many of the problems we face can, whatever their origins, only have solutions that involve a deep understanding of science and technology.

Evolution is adventitious and not foresighted. Only through the deaths of an immense number of slightly maladapted organisms are we, brains and all, here today.

Each plant and animal is exquisitely made; should not a supremely competent Designer have been able to make the intended variety from the start? The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not with a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament).

When it gets complicated, that's usually because the world is complicated—or because we're complicated. When we shy away from it because it seems too difficult (or because we've been taught so poorly), we surrender the ability to take charge of our future. We are disenfranchised. Our self-confidence erodes.

There seem to be many people who simply wish to be told an answer, any answer, and thereby avoid the burden of keeping two mutually exclusive possibilities in their heads at the same time.

El reduccionismo no parece conceder un respeto suficiente a la complejidad del universo. A algunos se les antoja como un híbrido curioso de arrogancia y pereza intelectual.

We are, each of us, a multitude.

The fact that atoms are composed of three kinds of elementary particles—protons, neutrons and electrons—is a comparatively recent finding. The neutron was not discovered until 1932. Modern physics and chemistry have reduced the complexity of the sensible world to an astonishing simplicity: three units put together in various patterns make, essentially, everything.

En basit yap?l? tek hücreli organizma bile en mükemmel cep saatinden daha karma??k bir makinedir.

Perhaps if one less dragonfly had drowned in the Carboniferous swamps, the intelligent organisms on our planet today would have feathers and teach their young in rookeries. The pattern of evolutionary causality is a web of astonishing complexity; the incompleteness of our understanding humbles us.

We are difficult to come by and a danger to ourselves.

Que haya cosas que el observador ordinario, o incluso el experto, no entiende, es inevitable.