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Michael Brooks QUOTES

Michael Brooks QUOTES

1 " The definitive study of the herd instincts of astronomers has yet to be written, Fernie said, but there are times when we resemble nothing so much as a herd of antelope, heads down in tight formation, thundering with firm determination in a particular direction across the plain. At a given signal from the leader we whirl about, and, with equally firm determination, thunder off in quite a different direction, still in tight parallel formation.
(quoting an observation made by astronomer J. Donal Fernie) "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

2 " There are reasons to doubt that what we call the laws of physics necessarily apply everywhere in the universe—or that they were applicable to every time in its history. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

3 " We are pouring huge amounts of energy into the biological effort to understand where life came from, how it arose on planet Earth, because it matters to us; it is, perhaps our deepest question. Really, it boils down to this: Are we special? The best summation has been attributed to the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke: "Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not," he said. "In either case the idea is quite staggering." Clarke is right. If we are alone, that's extraordinary. If we are not , that's even better. Were we to discover that we are one of many life-forms on a planet that is one of many inhabited worlds, we would have a new perspective on being human - on being alive, even. And if we discover that some of that life beyond Earth is intelligent, a whole new vista of possible human experience opens up before us. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

4 " Skeptics might argue that pharmaceutical companies will fight anything that casts their products in a dubious light - especially if it results in people using lower doses across the board - but the truth is that, for many drug companies, reliable information on the placebo effect can't come soon enough. To pass muster, a drug must outperform placebo. But a 2001 study of antidepressant drug trials showed that while drug efficacy is rising, placebo rates are rising faster. It's almost ironic; the factors behind this are many and varied, but a significant contributor is our society's knowledge of - and belief in - the power of medicines. The pharmaceutical industry's palpable success means that unless something radical happens, it could soon be, like the Red Queen, running to stand still. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

5 " The third oddity was the surface on which Lawrence was doing his own succussion. It was a huge, black leather-bound King James Bible. Having done three raps on the Bible, his fist clenched around a vial containing a homeopathic remedy made from amethyst, Lawrence looked up. His face said, "I wish you hadn't seen that".
"You don't have to use a Bible," he assured me. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

6 " Every advance [in Science] will most likely tell us as much about ourselves as it will about the universe we inhabit. We are all collections of chemicals made in the cataclysmic explosions of stars; we are stardust, or nuclear waste, depending on your perspective. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

7 " Once that resigned acceptance of a discovery comes, we forget that there was once such a kerfuffle. We act as if this truth were always with us, that it is self-evident. We forget the decades of persecution someone endured in order to shepherd us to the view we would now die to defend. And so we become comfortable – so comfortable that we will wantonly persecute the man or woman who comes to disturb our peaceful state. "

― Michael Brooks , At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise

8 " Studies show that neurotic and psychiatric disorders are more common among those who attempt to keep conscious control of life and suppress its unwelcome quirks. Sanity, paradoxically, may lie in accepting that you are not in control. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

9 " In other words the effect of good friends is roughly similar to giving up smoking or making a significant cut to your intake of alcohol. A 2012 study, which followed 2,000 US citizens aged fifty and above, found that being chronically lonely was associated with being almost twice as likely to die over the period of the study. The "

― Michael Brooks , At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise

10 " Sometimes, the idea that science is a neutral, careful, bias-avoiding discipline has a bad day. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

11 " Then there is the “intelligent” signal from outer space that has defied explanation for thirty years; the enigma of our sense of free will despite all scientific evidence to the contrary; the spacecraft that are being pushed off course by an unknown force; the trouble we have explaining the origin of both sex and death using our best biological theories … the list goes on. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

12 " As noted, there’s nothing wrong with the DTP vaccine per se. However, studies that have been going on for more than two decades show that, when it is administered after other vaccines, such as BCG or measles vaccine, the combination can be deadly. But only if you’re a girl. "

― Michael Brooks , At the Edge of Uncertainty: 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise

13 " ...we had bypassed Romeo and Juliet and gone straight to Macbeth. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

14 " These coupling certainly do not fit with the mainstream idea that genes, or at least organisms, are hell-bent on reproducing themselves. They do fit, however, with the idea of a social role for sex, and they fit with the idea that sexual reproduction is a spandrel, a by-product of some other phenomenon. If Roughgarden is on to something, she believes it could have cultural as well as scientific implications. The orthodoxy of biology has corroded our culture like battery acid, she says, In general, we play out the roles prescribed for us by that culture - aggressive male and coy female - because deviation from its "norm" results in emotional and physical violence, bigotry, personal guilt, and criminalized behaviors. If biology has been getting it wrong though, the new orthodoxy could trigger an infusion of tolerance; perhaps the anomalous prevalence of sexual reproduction will end up having deeper repercussions outside of science than within it. "

― Michael Brooks , 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time