Arlen Specter Quotes

We cannot have tomorrow’s miracles if we tie scientists’ hands with yesterday’s rules.

The most all penetrating spirit before which will open the possibility of tilting not tables, but planets, is the spirit of free human inquiry. Believe only in that.

One must not put manacles upon science.

Work of intellectual daring carries the danger of increased error, in both frequency and consequence.... Intrusive regulation by nonscientists is most frightening for this reason: innovation and chanciness will die.

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.

Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.

They defined what was private and what was public and they would move it whenever they wished.

Genetic engineering is a result of science advancement, so I don't think that in itself is bad. If used wisely, genetics can be beneficial, but they can be abused, too.

You have to protect it too, you can't let just any stupid person take it and do something demoralizing with it. At the same time, I don't believe in being so rigid about controlling what happens either.

As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us - aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.

It's nice to have boundaries, because as long as we have them, we can cross them a bit, and that's what perks interest. If you have full freedom, what do you do?

Limits have to be set on how far one can simply use the... cleverness that we have to make changes.

Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever.

What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man.

The danger of unbounded liberty [of printing], and the danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the science of Government, which human understanding seems hitherto unable to solve.

Every attempt to stop science has been characterized by darkness.

The reason that we have rules is so that sometimes they can be suspended.

We should not place artificial limits on the intellectual work of our gifted scientists to explore new technologies, to understand what is possible …

In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and science

Let’s end President Bush’s war on science—muzzling the scientists and taking information off websites.

Our future progress and prosperity depend upon our ability to equal, if not surpass, other nations in the enlargement and advance of science, industry and commerce.

Where the frontier of science once was is now the center.

I believe in limited government. I believe that government should be limited in many ways, …. No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race

Science knows no boundaries, and efforts to create barriers – whether to keep new ideas within or to prevent new ones from entering from the outside – have universally proved harmful to progress.