Quote of the Day for 2016-01-03

"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."

— Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Quoted by Stephen Jay Gould in "Jove's Thunderbolts," Natural History magazine, October 1994

Map of the world, with Jerusalem at its center. Created by Gervase of Ebstorf (circa 1234)

Quote of the Day for 2015-09-16

"Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own."

— Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) "Purely Personal Prejudices," Strictly Personal

Hippasus after being thrown overboard by the disciples of Pythagoras for arguing that irrational numbers exist -OR- by the gods as punishment for disseminating the knowledge of said numbers.