Juan

“Being aware that we may be wrong is different from claiming that it is senseless to speak of right and wrong. Recognizing diversity and taking seriously ideas that diverge from our own is different from claiming that all ideas are equally worthy. Knowing that a given judgment is born within a complex cultural context and is related to many others does not necessarily imply that we are unable to recognize it is wrong.”
― Carlo Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy

“But this does not imply that we cannot or must not trust our own thinking. To the contrary: our own thinking is the best tool we have for finding our way in this world. Recognizing its limitations does not imply that it is not something to rely upon. If instead we trust in “tradition” more than in our own thinking, for instance, we are only relying on something even more primitive and uncertain than our own thinking. “Tradition” is nothing else than the codified thinking of human beings who lived at times when ignorance was even greater than ours.”
― Carlo Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy

“History may be a succession of absurdities, tragedies and crimes; but – everyone insists – the future can still be better than anything in the past. To give up this hope would induce a state of despair”
― John Nicholas Gray, The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths

“Human beings often cling to their certainties for fear that their opinions will be proven false. But a certainty that cannot be called into question is not a certainty. Solid certainties are those that survive questioning. In order to accept questioning as the foundation for our voyage toward knowledge, we must be humble enough to accept that today’s truth may become tomorrow’s falsehood.”
― Carlo Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy