Sublime

“Change,” Octavia Butler wrote, “is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe.”

They do not care about science or empirical truth or the latest invention ; they care about their name and their glory. Galileo gave the Medicis infinitely more glory by linking their name with cosmic forces than he had by making them the patrons of some new scientific gadget or discovery.

“His uncanny ability to engage in the dialogue between experience and theory made him a prime example of how acute observations, fantastic curiosity, experimental testing, a willingness to question dogma, and the ability to discern patterns across disciplines can lead to great leaps in human understanding.”

To Pollak, this was a demonstration not of Bill Baker’s cruelty but of his acumen—in this case to push his deep belief that science rests on a foundation of inquiry rather than certainty. Also, it revealed how nimble Baker’s mind really was. “A very small number of times in my life I’ve been in the presence of somebody who didn’t necessarily answer

Any self-appointed guru who has earned himself a king’s ransom in the modern “self-help” racket is bound to perk up a journalist’s bullshit detector,

Later, when he became a scientist, he actively looked for ways to determine whether he was right or wrong. When he was wrong, he changed his mind.