Feeling Humble

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
―     Albert Einstein
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On This Day In:
2020	Mostly Dry, With A Chance Of Late Rain
	And The Same Goes For Blogs / Posts
2019	Not Enough
2018	One Thing We Do Know
2017	Preservation
2016	Going Back
2015	Just For Today
2014	Reaching For Destiny
2013	Still Just Passing Through
2012	Live Or Die
2011	On Secession
2010	A Rocky Weekend

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The Right Questions

Ask the right questions, and nature will open the door to her secrets.
—    Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata (CV) Raman
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930
[This quote is from a blog I follow: https://ram0singhal.wordpress.com/
The link for the specific post is:  https://ram0singhal.wordpress.com/2021/06/15/nobel-prize-1930-in-physics/
Like almost all of my “re-posts” from other blogs / websites, this quote is being posted without prior permission.  As such, I will remove the post if requested by the the owner.  I am making no claim to ownership of the quote, the full post or to the original web site.  Please visit the original site if you have some time.    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	#DonTheCon: Why The Oval Office Is Dark
2019	Begin Now
2018	Do You See Him At The Border
2017	Keep Moving Forward
2016	That Which You Restore
	The Best Of Disinfectants
2015	Thousands
2014	What We Can
2013	Mostly Unsound
2012	Malcontent
2011	What Have You Seen Lately?
	Just Perspire!

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Broaden The Circle

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.  Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations.  We have broadened the circle of those we love.  We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience.  If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.  Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant.  They will fear the loss of power.  We will hear much about treason and disloyalty.  Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones.  But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	Stay Gentle
2019	Immoral #45
2018	From My Soapbox
2017	The Single Most Effective Thing For Health
2016	A Trumpet Solo
2015	Potential Is A Heavy Burden
2014	Fear Not, Weep Not
2013	Half Way There
2012	Sacrificed Any Lately?
2011	The Value Of One’s Character
2010	Intervals
	On Being Human
	Non-predictive Emergence
	Events
	Bodily Functions
	Standing Thoughts
	Sent Home Is Better Than Fixed

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Start Reading / Start Building

I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.
―    George Washington
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On This Day In:
2020	Nurturing Trees And Plants
2019	Seeking Needs
2018	Not Sure Anyway…
	All Clear Nuclear And Burn
2017	Forms Of Conservation
2016	Oh, So Lacking
2015	e pluribus unum
2014	Nothing So Far Removed
2013	Positions
2012	Two Errors
2011	Long Live The King!

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Are We Getting Close To Uncertainty?

Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain.
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	Two Loves
	A Short Count
2019	Don’t Forget: Fire Burns
2018	Especially In The Middle East
2017	A Good Local
2016	Life Unlimited
2015	Still Trying
2014	Destiny, n.
2013	No Apologies
2012	Utterly Convinced
2011	A Key To Effectiveness

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Maybe “Creation” Wasn’t That Difficult After All

I stress that the universe is made mostly of nothing, that something is the exception.
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	#45: Time Is Ticking Away
	#45 Claims COVID-19 Defeated To Open The Economy
2019	Belief Buffet
2018	Change Is Law
2017	A Dog Day Of Summer
2016	Chances Are
2015	Truer Spoken
2014	Not Quite There Yet (Either)
	Many Colors
2013	Distance, n.
	Less Can Be More
2012	Rise Up!
	The Gift
2011	Artful Courage
2010	A Handful of Lessons…

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Very Young Or Very New

Sometimes the shape of the new paradigm is foreshadowed in the structure that extraordinary research has given to the anomaly.  … More often no such structure is consciously seen in advance. Instead, the new paradigm, or a sufficient hint to permit later articulation, emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis.  What the nature of that final stage is — how an individual invents (or finds he has invented) a new way of giving order to data now all assembled — must here remain inscrutable and may be permanently so.  Let us here note only one thing about it.  Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.
—    Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
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On This Day In:
2020	Or To Destroy Democracy
2019	A Defense Of Liberty
2018	And Blog To Word Up To The Universe
	The Irony Of Greed
2017	Or Revisiting A Blog Site
2016	Alas, Too Often The Latter
2015	Either / Or
2014	Memorial Day – 2014
	Perfection
2013	Memorial Day Video
	Equal = Equal
2012	Congrats, Nephew!!
	Doggie Vision Networks
	The Flash: Omnibus
	JLI: vol 1
	Flash: Rebirth
	Burning Images
	What Do You Believe?
2011	Are We Still At War With The Poor?

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Standing Next To Anyone?

A great teacher never strives to explain his vision.  He simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.
—     The Rev. R. Inman
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On This Day In:
2020	Only Now
2019	I Think I’ve Been Blurred
2018	Progress On The Honey Do List
	And It’s Mostly Free, Too!
2017	Both Dismissed
2016	Poetry Isn’t Going To Work
2015	MA Fix
	Getting Better
2014	Actually
2013	Unfortunate Evolutionary Accidents
2012	Tense (Past, Present And Future)
2011	What Is Your Preference?

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They Don’t And They Aren’t

Plagues don’t come for one tribe or another;  they don’t smite a population because it’s gone astray;  they’re neither divine punishment nor a sign of the Rapture.
—    Virginia  Heffernan
From her article:  “Words To Live By“
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine;  dtd:  May 2020
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On This Day In:
2020	Social Distancing
2019	Touched?
2018	Chillin’ With My Bro
	Inconvenient Adventure
2017	Genuine Tragedies
2016	Why I’m Scared Of November
2015	I Can Tell Too
2014	In Hand
2013	No Fear
2012	Comic Books
	Keeping The Peace
2011	You Still Have To Pay For It

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Appreciating Intricacy

If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It…  prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing?  Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intricacy?
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	Insensitive To Silence
	Weaker, Sicker And Poorer
2019	Don’t Be Small
2018	Persistence
2017	Are You A Loser?
2016	Constitution And Conscience
2015	Separate, Fearful And Imprisoned
2014	Something Worth Making
2013	Absolutely
2012	Can Do
2011	Wise Criticism

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Re-institute The Wall Between Church And State

Both borderline science and many religions are motivated in part by a serious concern about the nature of the universe and our role in it, and for this reason merit our consideration and regard.  In addition, I think it possible that many religions involve at their cores an attempt to come to grips with profound mysteries of our individual life histories, as described in the last chapter.  But both in borderline science and in organized religion there is much that is specious or dangerous.  While the practitioners of such doctrines often wish there were no criticisms to which they are expected to reply, skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	Early Knowledge
	Seen Any Messages Lately?
2019	I Don’t Think We’ll Be Serving Them Cake
2018	New And Old
2017	Ever
2016	At The Center
2015	True Value In Life
2014	A Potential To Be Concerned
2013	Fine No More
2012	Have You Checked Your Height Lately?
2011	Are You Convinced?

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Horticulture Anyone?

Much education today is monumentally ineffective.  All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.
—    John W. Gardner
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On This Day In:
2020	Heroes Die Too
	Front Update
	Still More Hope Than Fact
2019	The Ones Worth Remembering, Anyway
	Boot Edge Edge (My New T)
2018	To Reach The Next Threshold
2017	Streaking Tales
2016	Singular Reality
2015	He Says It’s Hard To Get There From Here
2014	Question From A Founding Father
2013	Make Heroes
2012	See And Hold
2011	Am Not, Are So

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Adding Spice

Variety in practice is most important.  Repeating monotonously over and over again in a treadmill fashion is the very worst kind of practice.  It is both stupid and unnecessary… using your brains and your ingenuity, and your practice will not be a bore to you.
—    Josef Lhévinne
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On This Day In:
2020	Mo, Cilla, Mushy Peas And Rain
	No New Wars
2019	An Epitaph For #45 (#LyingDonald)
2018	Before And After
2017	Verbs
2016	Not Too Tidy
2015	Little Understanding
2014	Open Early
2013	Movies And A Lifetime Of Lyrics
	This Truth
2012	Cheaper To Hold
2011	Resistance Is Futile
	One Great, One Enjoyable, One Terrible…
	Unfortunately, No Approval Is Required

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The Heart Of Science

We have found that scientific laws pervade all of nature, that the same rules apply on Earth as in the skies, that we can find a resonance, a harmony, between the way we think and the way the world works…
As a boy Kepler had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendor, a harmony of the worlds which he sought so tirelessly all his life.  Harmony in this world eluded him.  His three laws of planetary motion represent, we now know, a real harmony of the worlds, but to Kepler they were only incidental to his quest for a cosmic system based on the Perfect Solids, a system which, it turns out, existed only in his mind.  Yet from his work, we have found that scientific laws pervade all of nature, that the same rules apply on Earth as in the skies, that we can find a resonance, a harmony, between the way we think and the way the world works.
When he found that his long cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts, he preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions.  That is the heart of science.
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	Up Again
2019	Advice From #1 To #45
2018	How Much I Will Miss The Trump Administration
2017	We Need To Continue Experimenting
2016	Consistently
2015	We Must Dissent
2014	Now What?
2013	Judgement
2012	Stuck In My Mind
	Life’s Hope
2011	Just Getting Up
	Directions Please

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Clear Global Standards

The low cost of generic drugs makes them essential to global public health.  But if those bargain drugs are of low quality, they do more harm than good.  For years, politicians, regulators and aid workers have focused on ensuring access to these drugs.  Going forward, they must place equal value on quality, through an exacting program of unannounced inspections, routine testing of drugs already on the market and strict legal enforcement against companies manufacturing subpar medicine.  One model is the airline industry, which through international laws and treaties, has established clear global standards for aviation safety.
Without something similar for safe and effective drugs, the twin forces of subpar medicine and growing drug resistance will be so destructive that developed countries won’t be able to ignore them.  As Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist who has studied drug quality in Indonesia, put it, “The fact is, pathogens know no borders.”
—   Katherine Eban
From her article: “The Worldwide Threat Of Generic Drugs“
Appearing in Time Magazine, dtd: 3 June 2019
The article also appears online at:  https://time.com/5590602/generic-drugs-quality-risk/
[I personally subscribe to the hard copy of Time Magazine.  This quote is being offered without permission or authorization.  I make no claim of ownership or authorship.  I am receiving no compensation from the author or the magazine for posting this quote.  I found the article interesting and am simply offering the quote for your consideration.    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Life’s Mysteries
2019	I Doubt I Ever Will
2018	Who Will Thank (If Not Remember) Me
2017	Reinforced Learning
2016	I Choose To Believe
2015	What They Don’t Teach You At School
2014	Still Trying To Die (5)
2013	Honest Doubt
2012	Choice
2011	Ownership Of Thought

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