Quotes on Science

A dear friend of mine, Brandon Porter, MD, PhD - recently wrote a letter to a fellow scientist, Dr. Dyson, and included these quotes at the end, marking points made in his letter.  I loved them and wanted to share.

Here are the quotes:

“We must regard science, then, from three points of view. First, it is the free activity of man's divine faculties of reason and imagination. Secondly, it is the answer of the few to the demands of the many for wealth, comfort and victory, gifts which it will grant only in exchange for peace, security and stagnation. Finally it is man's gradual conquest, first of space and time, then of matter as such, then of his own body and those of other living beings, and finally the subjugation of the dark and evil elements in his own soul.” - J. B. S. Haldane, "Daedalus, or Science and the Future"

Chapter 24, “The World, The Flesh, and The Devil.” Desmond Bernal’s first book.

“To defeat the Devil, we shall first reorganize society along scientific lines, and later learn to exercise conscious intellectual control over our moods and emotional drives, intervening directly in the affective functions of our brains with technical means yet to be discovered.”