Often times we want something to be true, we want our world view to be the truth when it would be infinitely better for us if we accept and to just try to change the world we know. It is of little use to keep on pretending about something when it limits our actions on making our aim to be reality!
from Eugene Wallingford’s blog Knowing and Doing
But my favorite passage came near the end, in response to the question, “Do you believe in magic?”
Hopefully I’m a nice guy, but I’m a really grumpy scientist, and in the end, I’m a reductionist. So if you can show me, [I’ll believe it]. As a scientist, I have to be grumpy about everything and be able to be willing to believe anything. … If you care what you believe, you should never be in the investigative fields — ever. You can’t care what you believe; you just have to care what’s out there. And when you do that, your bandwidth is as wide as that sounds, and the rigor … has to be as narrow as as the biggest bigot you’ve ever seen. Both are resident in a scientist’s mind at the same time.