Whether Our Work Is Art

The Most Remarkable Discovery Made By Scientists Is Science Itself. The Discovery Must Be Compared In Importance With The Invention Of Cave-painting And Of Writing. Like These Earlier Human Creations, Science Is An Attempt To Control Our Surroundings By Entering Into Them And Understanding Them From Inside. And Like Them, Science Has Surely Made A Critical Step In Human Development Which Cannot Be Reversed. We Cannot Conceive A Future Society Without Science.

It Is Often Said That The Progression From Simple To Complex Runs Counter To The Normal Statistics Of Chance That Are Formalized In The Second Law Of Thermodynamics. Strictly Speaking, We Could Avoid This Criticism Simply By Insisting That The Second Law Does Not Apply To Living Systems In The Environment In Which We Find Them. For The Second Law Applies Only When There Is No Overall Flow Of Energy Into Or Out Of A System, Whereas All Living Systems Are Sustained By A Net Inflow Of Energy.

The Idea That The Universe Is Running Down Comes From A Simple Observation About Machines. Every Machine Consumes More Energy Than It Renders.

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?

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