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One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it.

James Lovelock

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James Lovelock
Age: 105
Beekeeper
Biochemist
Biologist
Chemist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Meteorologist
Mythographer
Science Fiction Writer
Scientist
Letchworth
Hertfordshire
James Ephraim Lovelock
James E. Lovelock
James E Lovelock
J. E. Lovelock
J E Lovelock
Jim Lovelock
J. Lovelock
J.E. Lovelock
J Lovelock
Lovelock
Lovelock J
Lovelock J.
Lovelock J. E.
Lovelock JE
Thing
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Never
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Bits
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Truth
Iterate
Certain
Nearer
Anything
Scientist

More quotes by James Lovelock

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I've got personal views on the '60s. You can't have freedom without paying the price for it.
James Lovelock
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This programme to stop nuclear by 2020 is just crazy. If there were a nuclear war, and humanity were wiped out, the Earth would breathe a sigh of relief.
James Lovelock
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I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.
James Lovelock
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The entire range of living matter on Earth from whales to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of maintaining the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts.
James Lovelock
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We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can't stand windmills at any price.
James Lovelock
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If you start any large theory, such as quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, it takes about 40 years for mainstream science to come around. Gaia has been going for only 30 years or so.
James Lovelock
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An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.
James Lovelock
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Just after World War II, this country led the world in science by every way you could measure it, yet the number of scientists was a tiny proportion of what it is now.
James Lovelock
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Geological change usually takes thousands of years to happen but we are seeing the climate changing not just in our lifetimes but also year by year.
James Lovelock
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I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen.
James Lovelock
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The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.
James Lovelock
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All the modelling we do shows that the climate is poised on the jump up to a new hot state. It is accelerating so fast that you could say that we are already in it.
James Lovelock
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Civilization in its present form hasn't got long.
James Lovelock
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We need a more authoritative world...What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
James Lovelock
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Science always uses metaphor.
James Lovelock
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By the end of this century, climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic.
James Lovelock
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Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.
James Lovelock
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Nowadays if you're dependent on a grant - and 99% of them are - you can't make mistakes as you won't get another one if you do.
James Lovelock
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You mustn't take what I say as gospel because no one can second-guess the future.
James Lovelock
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The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.
James Lovelock