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I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

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I don't want to believe. I want to know.

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Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracte...more

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If you had walked through the pleasant Tuscan countryside in the 1890's, you might have come upon a somewhat long-haired teenage high school dropout o...more

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Those at too great a distance may, I am well are, mistake ignorance for perspective.

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Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy...more

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Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of e...more

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You squeeze the eyedropper, and a drop of pond water drips out onto the microscope stage. You look at the projected image. The drop is full of life - ...more

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There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten ...more

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Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbi...more

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But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately an...more

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All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys ...more

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If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens a...more