Frasi di Steven Weinberg

„Osservando la natura, nel passato, l'impressione di essere dinanzi ad un progetto doveva essere enorme. La Terra è un luogo così confortevole e piacevole, e tutte le cose funzionano così bene. Tuttavia, man mano che apprendiamo più cose sull'universo, esso non sembra più un luogo così amichevole, e noi risultiamo essere i vincitori in una lotteria cosmica.“

—  Steven Weinberg

„È comprensibile che gran della storiografia della scienza si occupi dei suoi successi, di scoperte fortunate, di brillanti deduzioni o dei grandi, quasi magici balzi in avanti di un Newton o di un Einstein. Io ritengo però che non sia possibile capire veramente i successi della scienza se non si capisce anche quanto essi siano sofferti: quanto sia facile essere fuorviati, quanto sia difficile sapere, in ogni circostanza, qual è la prossima cosa da fare.“

—  Steven Weinberg

cap. VI, p. 134
I primi tre minuti

„Ci sono persone buone che fanno cose buone e persone cattive che fanno cose cattive, ma se volete trovare gente buona che faccia cose cattive, rivolgetevi alla religione.“

—  Steven Weinberg

„Quanto più l'universo ci appare comprensibile, tanto più ci appare senza scopo.“

—  Steven Weinberg

cap. VIII, p. 155
I primi tre minuti

„Per un fisico non c'è nulla di più gratificante del riuscire a elaborare le cose numericamente, dell'avere la capacità di dire che in un determinato momento la temperatura, la densità e la composizione chimica dell'universo avevano determinati valori.“

—  Steven Weinberg

prefazione, p. 10
I primi tre minuti

„With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.“

—  Steven Weinberg

„Now I realise that many people don't believe in that any more who call themselves Muslims or Jews or Christians, but that is the traditional God and he's a terrible character. I don't like him.“

—  Steven Weinberg

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Contesto: Maybe at the very bottom of it... I really don't like God. You know, it's silly to say I don't like God because I don't believe in God, but in the same sense that I don't like Iago, or the Reverend Slope or any of the other villains of literature, the god of traditional Judaism and Christianity and Islam seems to me a terrible character. He's a god who will... who obsessed the degree to which people worship him and anxious to punish with the most awful torments those who don't worship him in the right way. Now I realise that many people don't believe in that any more who call themselves Muslims or Jews or Christians, but that is the traditional God and he's a terrible character. I don't like him.

„I think the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief; and anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization.“

—  Steven Weinberg

Closing statements of presentation at Beyond Belief : Science, Religion, Reason and Survival (5 November 2006)
Contesto: There are those whose views about religion are not very different from my own, but who nevertheless feel that we should try to damp down the conflict, that we should compromise it. … I respect their views and I understand their motives, and I don't condemn them, but I'm not having it. To me, the conflict between science and religion is more important than these issues of science education or even environmentalism. I think the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief; and anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization.

„Maybe at the very bottom of it… I really don't like God.“

—  Steven Weinberg

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Contesto: Maybe at the very bottom of it... I really don't like God. You know, it's silly to say I don't like God because I don't believe in God, but in the same sense that I don't like Iago, or the Reverend Slope or any of the other villains of literature, the god of traditional Judaism and Christianity and Islam seems to me a terrible character. He's a god who will... who obsessed the degree to which people worship him and anxious to punish with the most awful torments those who don't worship him in the right way. Now I realise that many people don't believe in that any more who call themselves Muslims or Jews or Christians, but that is the traditional God and he's a terrible character. I don't like him.

„There is one constant that seems to be fine tuned…and that is dark energy.“

—  Steven Weinberg

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Contesto: There is one constant that seems to be fine tuned... and that is dark energy.

„Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.“

—  Steven Weinberg

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Contesto: Many people do simply awful things out of sincere religious belief, not using religion as a cover the way that Saddam Hussein may have done, but really because they believe that this is what God wants them to do, going all the way back to Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac because God told him to do that. Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.

„It is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.“

—  Steven Weinberg

The Atheism Tapes (2004)
Contesto: I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it... and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.

„Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.“

—  Steven Weinberg

Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C. (April 1999)
This comment is modified in a later article derived from these talks:
:Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.
:* "A Designer Universe?" at PhysLink.com http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm

„All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically“

—  Steven Weinberg

Origine: Dreams of a Final Theory

„The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.“

—  Steven Weinberg

(1993), Epilogue, p. 155
The First Three Minutes (1977; second edition 1993)

„The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.“

—  Steven Weinberg

Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (1993), ISBN 0-09-922391-0.

„Science doesn't make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible not to believe in God“

—  Steven Weinberg

„One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.“

—  Steven Weinberg

Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C. (April 1999)

„The best military historians in fact do recognize the difficulty in stating rules of generalship. They do not speak of a science of war, but rather of a pattern of military behavior that cannot be taught or stated precisely but that somehow or other sometimes helps in winning battles. This is called the art of war. In the same spirit I think that one should not hope for a science of science, the formulation of any definite rules about how scientists do or ought to behave, but only aim at a description of the sort of behavior that historically has led to scientific progress—an art of science.“

—  Steven Weinberg

Chap. 5 : Tales of Theory and Experiment
Dreams of a Final Theory (1992; 2nd edition 1994)