"Science will persevere just as long as we retain a faculty we show no signs of losing: the ability to conceive — in no matter how imperfect or rudimentary a form - what the truth might be and retain also the inclination to ascertain whether our imaginings correspond to real life or not." (Peter B Medawar, "The Limits of Science". 1984)
"Nature is a vast tablet, inscribed with signs, each of which has its own signifi cancy, and becomes poetry in the mind when read; and geology is simply the key by which myriads of these signs, hitherto indecipherable, can be unlocked and perused, and thus a new province added to the poetical domain." (Hugh Miller, "Sketch-Book of Popular Geology", 1880)
"In a universe whose size is beyond human imagining, where our world floats like a dust mote in the void of night, men have grown inconceivably lonely. We scan the time scale and the mechanisms of life itself for portents and signs of the invisible. As the only thinking mammals on the planet - perhaps the only thinking animals in the entire sidereal universe - the burden of consciousness has grown heavy upon us. We watch the stars, but the signs are uncertain. We uncover the bones of the past and seek for our origins. There is a path there, but it appears to wander. The vagaries of the road may have a meaning, however; it is thus we torture ourselves." (Loren C Eiseley, "The Immense Journey", 1957)
"We seem to be entering a new world of technology, but the vehicle which is carrying us - science - shows dangerous signs of inadequacy for the voyage ahead. (Barry Commoner, "Science and Survival", 1966)
"[...] the picture of the universe presented by astronomy is one of dismal stretches of time and space and unparalled desolation. In the eternal abyss of space - bleak, cold, and dark - there are no signs of a Cosmic Consciousness." (Woolsey Teller, "The Atheism of Astronomy", 1972)
"Nature talks in signs and, to understand its language, one has to pay attention to similarities in form." (Jeremy Narby, "The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledg", 1998)
"This notion of 'being due' - what is sometimes called the gambler’s fallacy - is a mistake we make because we cannot help it. The problem with life is that we have to live it from the beginning, but it makes sense only when seen from the end. As a result, our whole experience is one of coming to provisional conclusions based on insufficient evidence: read ing the signs, gauging the odds." (John Haigh," Taking Chances: Winning With Probability", 1999)
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