Lewis Thomas
Lewis Thomas
Lewis Thomaswas an American physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth25 November 1913
CountryUnited States of America
persistence self numbers
The drive to be useful is encoded in our genes. But when we gather in very large numbers, as in the modern nation-state, we seem capable of levels of folly and self-destruction to be found nowhere else in all of nature. But if we keep at it and keep alive, we are in for one surprise after another. We can build structures for human society never seen before, thoughts never heard before, music never heard before.
sarcastic sarcasm ants
Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrasment...They do everything but watch television.
nature men embedded
Man is embedded in nature.
independent self islands
The whole dear notion of one's own Self-marvelous old free-willed, free- enterprising, autonomous, independent, isolated island of a Self- is a myth.
mistake errors making-mistakes
We are built to make mistakes, coded for error.
warfare weaponry ifs
If we are to be destroyed we will do it ourselves by warfare with thermonuclear weaponry.
language affection splendid
We are spectacular splendid manifestations of life. We have language. We have affection. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have music.
mistake stupidity inquiry
Most of the time I've worked in labs if I didn't encounter something in a week entirely unexpected and surprising I'd consider it a lost week. Lots of that is due to mistakes and stupidity, but it could open a new line of inquiry. Something really good turns up once in a hundred times, but it makes the whole day worthwhile.
ignorant pieces scientific-truth
The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.
two dancing choices
We are at our human finest, dancing with our minds, when there are more choices than two. Sometimes there are ten, even twenty different ways to go, all but one bound to be wrong, and the richness of the selection in such situations can lift us onto totally new ground.
nature garden kitchen
We have dominated and overruled nature, and from now on the earth is ours, a kitchen garden until we learn to make our own chlorophyll and float it out in the sun inside plastic mebranes. We will build Scarsdale on Mount Everest.
science waste chemicals
Chemical waste products are the droppings of science.
teaching analysis crystals
It is the very strangeness of nature that makes science engrossing. That ought to be at the center of science teaching. There are more than seven-times-seven types of ambiguity in science, awaiting analysis. The poetry of Wallace Stevens is crystal-clear alongside the genetic code.
motivational ignorance asking-questions
Good science is done by being curious in general, by asking questions all around, by acknowledging the likelihood of being wrong and taking this in good humor for granted, by having a deep fondness for nature, and by being made jumpy and nervous by ignorance.