Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living. Gregory Benford More Quotes by Gregory Benford More Quotes From Gregory Benford Genre pleasures are many, but the quality of shared values within an ongoing discussion may be the most powerful, enlisting lifelong devotion in its fans. Gregory Benford qualityfanspowerfuldevotion In temperate zones, winter is the best insecticide; it keeps the bugs in check. The tropics enjoy no such respite, so plants there have developed a wide range of alkaloids that kill off nosy insects and animals. Gregory Benford plantsbestenjoywinter Very little useful science got done in the space station. NASA never did the experiments needed to develop the technologies required for a genuine interplanetary expedition: centrifugal gravity to avoid bodily harm and a truly closed biosphere. Gregory Benford neverspacedonescience The earliest depiction of libertarian eugenics may have appeared in a science fiction novel, Robert Heinlein's 1942 tale 'Beyond This Horizon.' Gregory Benford beyondhorizonsciencefiction Enzymes - plainly the most important biotechnology of our era - already permeate many industrial processes. Unlike fossil fuels, they carry chemical programming which drives complex reactions, are renewable, and work at ordinary pressures and temperatures. Gregory Benford carryprogrammingimportantwork As a literature of change driven by technology, science fiction presents religion to a part of the reading public that probably seldom goes to church. Gregory Benford technologychangesciencereligion Indeed, the history of 20th century physics was in large measure about how to avoid the infinities that crop up in particle theory and cosmology. The idea of point particles is convenient but leads to profound, puzzling troubles. Gregory Benford avoidmeasurephysicshistory Invoking nature with its implied supremacy ignores that many cultures have fundamentally differing ideas of even what nature is, much less how it should work. Gregory Benford hownatureworkideas Virtuality - connection without proximity - is a major attraction in both fandom and the Net. Nobody knows you're a dog through the U.S. mail, either. Fans could be utterly different in their fanzine persona, which may be why both fandom and the Net were invented by individualistic Americans. Gregory Benford nobodyyoufansdog We have a name for people who create universes - they're called gods. There is no greater hubris than to think that we could take the place of godlike implications. Gregory Benford nameplacethinkpeople Seeing the space future through science fiction can be difficult. Much science fiction of the early era, the 1950s through the '70s, took an expansionist view. Gregory Benford viewfuturespacescience Experience shows that if you put more ethicists on a problem, you can end up with more problems. Gregory Benford problemsendyouexperience The Matrix itself is not some external evil, but rather an outcome of our own error, our karmic payoff of past actions. Not merely illusion, it is an allusion to a founding myth of our culture. Gregory Benford illusionevilculturepast Mathematics cannot handle physical quantities like density that literally go to infinity. Gregory Benford cannotgolikemathematics My brother Jim and I shared a womb without a view for nine months. Gregory Benford withoutviewwombbrother Reared in rural southern Alabama, we enjoyed an idyllic Huck Finn boyhood. But education there was casual at best. Our mother and father were high school teachers and challenged the pervasive easy-going ignorance. Gregory Benford bestmothereducationfather
