The Ascent of Man (1973) (edit title/settings)

C J Moran edited the memorable quotes of The Ascent of Man Friday, March 30, 2012.

• Added a quotation: “It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken."I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”
• Added a quotation: “There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.”

Ramon edited the memorable quotes of The Ascent of Man Thursday, October 15, 2009.

• Added a quotation: “The most powerful drive in <man> is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better.”Author
• Added a quotation: “It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.”Author
• Added a quotation: “Of course, it is tempting to close one's eyes to history, and instead to speculate about the roots of war in some possible animal instinct.... But war, organized war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and co-operative form of theft.”Author