I Don?t Feel Rejected By The Sky.

A Multitude Of Aspects Of The Natural World That Were Considered Miraculous Only A Few Generations Ago Are Now Thoroughly Understood In Terms Of Physics And Chemistry.

Avoidable Human Misery Is More Often Caused Not So Much By Stupidity As By Ignorance, Particularly Our Ignorance About Ourselves.

We've Begun At Last To Wonder About Our Origins, Star Stuff Contemplating The Stars, Organized Collections Of Ten Billion Billion Billion Atoms Contemplating The Evolution Of Matter, Tracing That Long Path By Which It Arrived At Consciousness Here On The Planet Earth And Perhaps Throughout The Cosmos. Our Obligation To Survive And Flourish Is Owed Not Just To Ourselves But Also To That Cosmos, Ancient And Vast, From Which We Spring.

We Have Heard The Rationales Offered By The Nuclear Superpowers. We Know Who Speaks For The Nations. But Who Speaks For The Human Species? Who Speaks For Earth?

In A Lot Of Scientists, The Ratio Of Wonder To Skepticism Declines In Time. That May Be Connected With The Fact That In Some Fields-mathematics, Physics, Some Others-the Great Discoveries Are Almost Entirely Made By Youngsters.