10 Arthur C. Clarke Quotes on Science

Arthur C. Clarke quotes on science

6. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they have few followers now.

10. As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.

16. All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.

21. The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life - much less intelligence - beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.

39. SETI is probably the most important quest of our time, and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.

42. Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

68. In 'Credo,' an essay published in 1991, Clarke lays out a belief system by distinguishing between two views of God: Alpha, who 'rewards good and evil in some vaguely described afterlife,' and Omega, 'Creator of Everything ... a much more interesting character and not so easily dismissed.' Clarke writes, 'No intelligent person can contemplate the night sky without a sense of awe. The mind-boggling vista of exploding supernovae and hurtling galaxies does seem to require a certain amount of explaining.'

69. When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

71. Clarke's Third Law doesn't work in reverse. Given that 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' it does not follow that 'any magical claim that anybody may make at any time is indistinguishable from a technological advance that well come some time in the future.' ... There have admittedly been occasions when authoritative, pontificating skeptics have come away with egg on their faces, even within their own lifetimes. But there have been a far greater number of occasions when magical claims have never been vindicated. An apparent magical claim might eventually turn out to be true. In any age there are so many magical claims that are, or could be, made. They can't all be true; many are mutually contradictory; and we have no reason to suppose that, simply by the act of sitting down and dreaming up a magical claim, we shall make it come true in some future technology. Some things that would surprise us today will come true in the future. But lots and lots of things that would surprise us today will not come true ever.

77. Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.