SHAMWOW

"If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you. It's not just a lot of mysterious things happening, there's a lot we understand out there. And that understanding empowers you. . ."

Pure poetry.



Have I ever mentioned how much I admire that brain of Neil DeGrasse Tyson? Because I do. I really really do. Here are some other awesome sciency and/or reason quotes.

“If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that what conquers our ignorance is research, not giving up and attributing our ignorance to the miraculous work of a creator.”
-Jerry Coyne

“Why people are so drawn to the irrational is something that has always puzzled me. I want to be if I can, as sure of the real world around me as is possible. Now, you can only attain that to a certain degree but I want the greatest degree of control. I've never involved myself in narcotics of any kind, I don't smoke, I don't drink because that can easily just fuzz the edges of my rationality, fuzz the edges of my reasoning powers and I want to be as aware as I possibly can. That means giving up a lot of fantasies that might be comforting in some ways, but I'm willing to give that up in order to live in an actually real world, or as close as I can get to it.”
-James Randi

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. “
-Carl Sagan

"I think [atheists] get bad press, that we take the art out of beauty in the world, which is not true. The fact that the earth is 4.6 billion years old, and there are 4 million species of animals, and they've evolved by accident is, I think, more beautiful than any intelligent designer can claim."
-Ricky Gervais

and the classic

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
-Galileo Galilei