Astronomy Is Not The Apex

Many Theories Of The Ancient World Seem Terribly Childish Today, A Hodge-podge Of Fables And False Comparisons.but Our Theories Will Seem Childish Five-hundred Years From Now.every Theory Is Based On Some Analogy, And Sooner Or Later The Theory Fails Because The Analogy Turns Out To Be False. A Theory In Its Day Helps To Solve The Problems Of The Day.

No Science Is Immune To The Infection Of Politics And The Corruption Of Power.

That Series Of Inventions By Which Man From Age To Age Has Remade His Environment Is A Different Kind Of Evolution -- Not Biological, But Cultural Evolution . . . "the Ascent Of Man.

Who Has Not Hoped To Outrage An Enemy's Dignity? Who Has Not Been Swept By The Wish To Hurt? And Who Has Not Thought That The Impersonal World Deserves No Better Than To Be Destroyed By One Fabulous Sign Of His Displeasure?

Da Vinci Was As Great A Mechanic And Inventor As Were Newton And His Friends. Yet A Glance At His Notebooks Shows Us That What Fascinated Him About Nature Was Its Variety, Its Infinite Adaptability, The Fitness And The Individuality Of All Its Parts. By Contrast What Made Astronomy A Pleasure To Newton Was Its Unity, Its Singleness, Its Model Of A Nature In Which The Diversified Parts Were Mere Disguises For The Same Blank Atoms.