Scientifically Literate Quotes & Sayings

You can't really be scientifically literate if you don't understand evolution. And you can't be an educated member of society if you don't understand science. — Eugenie Scott

The value of science is not simply what the next model of the iPod you will buy next week, but its real value comes about when it's time to distinguish reality from everything else. And to be scientifically literate is to be trained in what it is, to recognize your own frailty as a data-taking device. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

To be scientifically literate is
to empower yourself to
know when someone else is
full of bullshit. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I personally prefer being a blonde, but whatever it takes for the character. — Peta Wilson

The new culture war is about national identity rather than religion and 'transcendent authority.' It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: 'Who are we?' But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s. — E. J. Dionne

The best way to avoid abuses is for the populace in general to be scientifically literate, to understand the implications of such investigations. In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work. If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern - if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table - we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. — Carl Sagan

If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you, and that understanding empowers you. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Once you have an innovation culture, even those who are not scientists or engineers - poets, actors, journalists - they, as communities, embrace the meaning of what it is to be scientifically literate. They embrace the concept of an innovation culture. They vote in ways that promote it. They don't fight science and they don't fight technology. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. — Bill Nye

Left to our own devices, we are apt to backslide to our instinctive conceptual ways. This underscores the place of education in a scientifically literate democracy, and even suggests a statement of purpose for it (a surprisingly elusive principle in higher education today). The goal of education is to make up for the shortcomings in our instinctive ways of thinking about the physical and social world. And education is likely to succeed not by trying to implant abstract statements in empty minds but by taking the mental models that are our standard equipment, applying them to new subjects in selective analogies, and assembling them into new and more sophisticated combinations. — Steven Pinker

My fury was lofty, pure, cool. — Banana Yoshimoto

It's a nice challenge to escape your reality. I think that's why actors do what we do. We like to play other people. It's therapeutic. — Stella Maeve

The possibility of genetic modification reminds me of the need for a scientifically literate electorate. Please stay tuned and vote! — Bill Nye

When you learn from experience and history, and try to walk down a different road, the present always reminds you that you need to walk down the road that experience and history did. This is why no one learns from experience and history. — Lionel Suggs

Health is the first muse, comprising the magical benefits of air, landscape, and bodily exercise on the mind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have people who believe they are scientifically literate but, in fact, are not. And I don't mind if you're not scientifically literate, but just admit that to yourself, so that you'll know, and perhaps you can take a first step to try to eradicate that. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Part of what it is to be scientifically-literate, it's not simply, 'Do you know what DNA is? Or what the Big Bang is?' That's an aspect of science literacy. The biggest part of it is do you know how to think about information that's presented in front of you. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

You can't have people making decisions about the future of the world who are scientifically illiterate. That's a recipe for disaster. And I don't mean just whether a politician is scientifically literate, but people who vote politicians into office. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I have never forgotten the almost mystical power over an audience a storyteller has, when the story is deep and links you. — Isobelle Carmody

The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater tolerance for ambiguity that science fosters. The new economy is predicated on a continuous pipeline of scientific and technological innovation. It can not exist without workers and consumers who are mathematically and scientifically literate. — Ann Druyan

We have people who believe they are scientifically literate but, in fact, are not. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson