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An argument often given for why Earth couldn't host another form of life is that once the life we know became established, it would have eliminated any competition through natural selection. But if another form of life were confined to its own niche, there would be little direct competition with regular life.
- Paul Davies
#Argument
#Competition
#Earth
#Know
#Life
So how can we test the idea that the transition from nonlife to life is simple enough to happen repeatedly? The most obvious and straightforward way is to search for a second form of life on Earth. No planet is more Earth-like than Earth itself, so if the path to life is easy, then life should have started up many times over right here.
- Paul Davies
#Earth
#Life
#Path
#Search
#Simple
Cancer is such a ruthless adversary because it behaves as if it has its own fiendishly cunning agenda.
- Paul Davies
#Agenda
#Because
#Cancer
#Cunning
#Own
The birth of science as we know it arguably began with Isaac Newton's formulation of the laws of gravitation and motion. It is no exaggeration to say that physics was reborn in the early 20th-century with the twin revolutions of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.
- Paul Davies
#Birth
#Know
#Motion
#Physics
#Science
Should we find a second form of life right here on our doorstep, we could be confident that life is a truly cosmic phenomenon. If so, there may well be sentient beings somewhere in the galaxy wondering, as do we, if they are not alone in the universe.
- Paul Davies
#Alone
#Find
#Life Is A
#Life
#Universe
Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term 'doubting Thomas' well illustrates the difference.
- Paul Davies
#Faith
#Knowledge
#Religion
#Science
For me, science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance.
- Paul Davies
#Alien
#Me
#Nature
#Physics
#Science
Scientists have no agreed theory of the origin of life - plenty of scenarios, conjectures and just-so stories, but nothing with solid experimental support.
- Paul Davies
#Life
#Nothing
#Origin
#Support
#Theory
Traditionally, scientists have treated the laws of physics as simply 'given,' elegant mathematical relationships that were somehow imprinted on the universe at its birth, and fixed thereafter. Inquiry into the origin and nature of the laws was not regarded as a proper part of science.
- Paul Davies
#Birth
#Nature
#Origin
#Science
#Universe
In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.
- Paul Davies
#Belief
#Professional
#Religion
#Science
It will be in the convergence of evolutionary biology, developmental biology and cancer biology that the answer to cancer will lie. Nor will this confluence be a one-way street.
- Paul Davies
#Answer
#Biology
#Lie
#Street
#Will
The language of chemistry simply does not mesh with that of biology. Chemistry is about substances and how they react, whereas biology appeals to concepts such as information and organisation. Informational narratives permeate biology.
- Paul Davies
#Biology
#Information
#Language
#React
General relativity is the cornerstone of cosmology and astrophysics. It has also provided the conceptual basis for string theory and other attempts to unify all the forces of nature in terms of geometrical structures.
- Paul Davies
#General
#Nature
#Other
#String
#Theory
Searching for alternative life on Earth might seem misconceived, because there is excellent evidence that every kind of life so far studied evolved from a common ancestor that lived billions of years ago. Yet most of the life that exists on Earth has never been properly classified.
- Paul Davies
#Earth
#Evidence
#Life
#Never
#Searching
My feeling is that scientific method has the power to account for and interlink all phenomena in the universe, including its origin, using the laws of nature. But that still leaves the laws unexplained.
- Paul Davies
#Feeling
#Nature
#Origin
#Power
#Universe
Most research into life's murky origin has been carried out by chemists. They've tried a variety of approaches in their attempts to recreate the first steps on the road to life, but little progress has been made. Perhaps that is no surprise, given life's stupendous complexity.
- Paul Davies
#Life
#Progress
#Research
#Road
#Surprise
A permanent base on Mars would have a number of advantages beyond being a bonanza for planetary science and geology. If, as some evidence suggests, exotic micro-organisms have arisen independently of terrestrial life, studying them could revolutionise biology, medicine and biotechnology.
- Paul Davies
#Beyond
#Biology
#Life
#Medicine
#Science
Cancer cells come pre-programmed to execute a well-defined cascade of changes, seemingly designed to facilitate both their enhanced survival and their dissemination through the bloodstream. There is even an air of conspiracy in the way that tumours use chemical signals to create cancer-friendly niches in remote organs.
- Paul Davies
#Air
#Conspiracy
#Create
#Survival
#Way
Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves.
- Paul Davies
#Fix
#Looks
#Nature
#Truth
#Universe
Is there anything science should not try to explain? Science is knowledge and knowledge is power - power to do good or evil. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
- Paul Davies
#Evil
#Good
#Knowledge
#Power
#Science
Perhaps the best motivation for going to Mars is political. It is obvious that no single nation currently has either the will or the resources to do it alone, but a consortium of nations and space agencies could achieve it within 20 years.
- Paul Davies
#Achieve
#Alone
#Best
#Political
#Space
Astronauts have been stuck in low-Earth orbit, boldly going nowhere. American attempts to kick-start a new phase of lunar exploration have stalled amid the realisation that NASA's budget is too small for the job.
- Paul Davies
#American
#Exploration
#Job
#New
#Space
Man-made computers are limited in their performance by finite processing speed and memory. So, too, the cosmic computer is limited in power by its age and the finite speed of light.
- Paul Davies
#Age
#Computers
#Light
#Memory
#Power
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