Quotes About Observation

Or perhaps they are here, but in hiding because of some Lex Galactica , some ethic of noninterference with emerging civilizations. We can imagine them, curious and dispassionate, observing us, as we would watch a bacterial culture in a dish of agar, to determine whether this year again, we manage to avoid self-destruction.

In the diagnosis of disease, Hippocrates introduced elements of the scientific method. He urged careful and meticulous observation: "Leave nothing to chance. Overlook nothing. Combine contradictory observations. Allow yourself enough time.

Observation: there was absolutely nothing to see on Venus. Conclusion: it must be covered with life.

Those who make uncritical observations or fraudulent claims lead us into error and deflect us from the major human goal of understanding how the world works. It is for this reason that playing fast and loose with the truth is a very serious matter.

Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Humans are good, she knew, at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent.

If we scrutinize 100,000 pictures, it's not surprising that occasionally we'll come upon something like a face. With our brains programmed for this from infancy, it would be amazing if we couldn't find one here and there.

we still talk about the Sun "rising" and the Sun "setting." It is 2,200 years since Aristarchus, and our language still pretends that the Earth does not turn. The

From the shadow length in Alexandria, the angle A can be measured. But from simple geometry ("if two parallel straight lines are transected by a third line, the alternate interior angles are equal"), angle B equals angle A. So by measuring the shadow length in Alexandria, Eratosthenes concluded that Syene was A = B = 7° away on the circumference of the Earth.

the metaphysicist has no laboratory.

It is striking that the observational search for extraterrestrial life began in the same generation as the invention of the telescope, and with the greatest theoretician of the age.

So, I think the bureaucratic religions try to institutionalize your perception of the numinous instead of providing the means so you can perceive the numinous directly—like looking through a six-inch telescope. If sensing the numinous is at the heart of religion, who's more religious would you say—the people who follow the bureaucratic religions or the people who teach themselves science?

science carries us towards an understanding of how the world is, rather than how we would wish it to be [...]

Göz önünde tutmak'' anlam?ndaki Ä°ngilizce ''consider'' sözcüÄŸünün köken anlam? ÅŸudur: ''Gezegene bakarak konuÅŸmak.'' Gezegenlere bakarak konuÅŸmaksa oldukça ciddi bir iÅŸti.

Leave nothing to chance. Overlook nothing. Combine contradictory observations. Allow yourself enough time.

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

As ages passed, people learned from their ancestors. The more accurately you knew the position and movements of the Sun and Moon and stars, the more reliably you could predict when to hunt, when to sow and reap, when to gather the tribes. As precision of measurement improved, records had to be kept, so astronomy encouraged observation and mathematics and the development of writing.

Being freed from superstition isn't enough for science to grow. One must also have the idea of interrogating Nature, of doing experiments.

Oddly enough, writing again has made me WANT to get out more. I mean, if I don't start living life, how can I write about it?

How did you know? This may be a large house, but I'm not blind. Or deaf. [..]Well, you needn't avail yourself of any romantic notions. He was just doing his duty. And with unflagging enthusiasm, I might add. Diana said dryly.

It is my job to know things, the cat said. Cats know lots of things about the world and its creatures, especially people. Cats watch and listen. It is what they do best.

He woke to find Larkin Quill standing over him. Even from the back—for he was turned away—the cloaked form of the ex-Tracker was instantly recognizable.

He finished the Cherry Coke, and when the hash arrived he ordered a glass of milk to go with it. He ate the hash and drank the milk without looking up. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Josie Jackson looking at him as she passed down the counter.

What she heard was a deep and pervasive silence.