Jean Rostand Quotes

Networked science has the potential to speed up dramatically the rate of discovery across all of science.

I believe that the quantum of our knowledge will increase considerably in the coming years and that scientists will continue to be amongst the brave voices speaking out.

If you go back to the 17th century, scientists generally weren't rewarded much at all for sharing discoveries, and as a result, they conducted a lot of their research very, very secretively indeed.

Today, the solitary inventor has been over-shadowed by groups of scientists.

David Sainsbury has been good for science and good for innovation in the U.K. He has been an outstanding science minister and shown extraordinary passion and commitment to his portfolio.

It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.

The position of modern science, as far as an ignorant man of letters can understand it, seems not a step in advance of that held by Huxley and Romanes in the last century.

The tension between public and private science is powerful.

The publicity of the Nobel Prize has made clear that the research work connected with the Quantum Hall Effect was so successful because a tremendous large number of institutions and individuals supported this activity.

Written in 1895, Alfred Nobel's will endowed prizes for scientific research in chemistry, physics, and medicine. At that time, these fields were narrowly defined, and researchers were often classically trained in only one discipline. In the late 19th century, knowledge of science was not a requisite for success in other walks of life.

Instead of having to be a member of the Royal Society to do science, the way you had to be in England in the 17th, 18th, centuries today pretty much anybody who wants to do it can, and the information that they need to do it is there.

Look, science is hard, it has a reputation of being hard, and the facts are, it is hard, and that's the result of 400 years of science, right? I mean, in the 18th century, in the 18th century you could become an expert on any field of science in an afternoon by going to a library, if you could find the library, right?

Physics is perceived as a lonesome, nerdy kind of enterprise that has very little to do with human feelings and the things that excite people day-to-day about each other. Yet physicists in their own working environment are very social creatures.

I'd like to think the scientists need us - but do they? Did Newton need Blake?

In 1986, I was asked by the then-Dean of Science at the University of British Columbia, Dr. R.C. Miller, Jr., to establish a new interdisciplinary institute, the Biotechnology Laboratory. I decided that it was time for me to start paying back for the thirty years of fun that I had been able to have in research.

Maybe we could think of science as being like a nuclear chain reaction in which people and ideas bounce off each other, and if critical mass is reached, a new field is formed.

Now in the 21st century, the boundaries separating chemistry, physics, and medicine have become blurred, and as happened during the Renaissance, scientists are following their curiosities even when they run beyond the formal limits of their training.

The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science, the very latest controversies, are worth reporting on. How often do you see headlines like 'General Relativity still governing planetary orbits' or 'Phlogiston theory remains false'? By the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline.

If you start any large theory, such as quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, it takes about 40 years for mainstream science to come around. Gaia has been going for only 30 years or so.

Science is a part of culture. Indeed, it is the only truly global culture because protons and proteins are the same all over the world, and it's the one culture we can all share.

Further, science is a collaborative effort.

The day when the scientist, no matter how devoted, may make significant progress alone and without material help is past. This fact is most self-evident in our work.

I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance.

Science extends an invitation to all nations.

we need to work harder if we're going to continue what Carl Sagan saw as a new Renaissance of discovery. One way is by explaining to the Congress and the public why it is in our national interest to get this work funded. We can win this – and do what is right by the American people – if we can get the public to understand what's at stake.