3 Freeman Dyson Quotes on Truth

Freeman Dyson quotes on truth

32. I have five minutes left to give you a message to take home. The message is simple. 'God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world'. This was said by Francis Bacon, one of the founding fathers of modern science, almost four hundred years ago. Bacon was the smartest man of his time, with the possible exception of William Shakespeare.

33. I am saying to modern scientists and theologians: don't imagine that our latest ideas about the Big Bang or the human genome have solved the mysteries of the universe or the mysteries of life. Here are Bacon's words again: 'The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding'. In the last four hundred years, science has fulfilled many of Bacon's dreams, but it still does not come close to capturing the full subtlety of nature.

36. Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect.