The important thing is that we now have the tools to sequence all kinds of animals and plants and microbes - as well as humans. It is not important that we didn't actually finish the human sequence yet. Freeman Dyson More Quotes by Freeman Dyson More Quotes From Freeman Dyson Vegetation is really controlling what happens...whereas the emphasis in the climate models has always been on the atmosphere. Freeman Dyson global-warming atmosphere climate The average ground temperature of the Earth is impossible to measure since most of the Earth is ocean...So this average ground temperature is a fiction. Freeman Dyson ocean average fiction The universe in some sense must have known that we were coming. Freeman Dyson fine-tuning known universe The average student emerges at the end of the Ph.D. program, already middle-aged, overspecialized, poorly prepared for the world outside, and almost unemployable except in a narrow area of specialization. Large numbers of students for whom the program is inappropriate are trapped in it, because the Ph.D. has become a union card required for entry into the scientific job market. Freeman Dyson numbers average jobs Do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant. Freeman Dyson ignorant imagine done Most of the papers which are submitted to the Physical Review are rejected, not because it is impossible to understand them, but because it is possible. Those which are impossible to understand are usually published. Freeman Dyson reviews paper impossible When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in muddled, incomplete and confusing form. ... For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope. Freeman Dyson innovation confusing crazy There is nothing so big nor so crazy that one out of a million technological societies may not feel itself driven to do, provided it is physically possible. Freeman Dyson driven crazy may The only way to improve the chances for finding winners is to keep all the choices open and try them all. Freeman Dyson choices trying way There is no way to find the best design except to try out as many designs as possible and discard the failures. Freeman Dyson design trying way If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter. Freeman Dyson nasty ifs matter Aviation is the branch of engineering that is least forgiving of mistakes. Freeman Dyson engineering forgiving mistake Our thinking is permeated by our historical myths Freeman Dyson myth historical thinking For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope. Freeman Dyson crazy doe looks Scientifically speaking, a butterfly is at least as mysterious as a superstring. When something ceases to be mysterious it ceases to be of absorbing interest to scientists. Almost all things scientists think and dream about are mysterious. Freeman Dyson butterfly dream thinking I am hoping that the scientists and politicians who have been blindly demonizing carbon dioxide for 37 years will one day open their eyes and look at the evidence. Freeman Dyson one-day eye years That was the wonderful thing about Ramanujan. He discovered so much, and yet he left so much more in his garden for other people to discover. Freeman Dyson ramanujan garden people The history of mathematics is a history of horrendously difficult Freeman Dyson ignorant impossible people The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design. Freeman Dyson design bridges math Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Freeman Dyson real views science
