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I'm a technological optimist in that I do believe that technology will provide solutions that will allow the world in 2050 to support 9 billion people at an acceptable standard of living. But I'm a political pessimist in that I am concerned about whether the science will be appropriately applied.

Martin Rees

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Martin Rees
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: June 23
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Physicist
Politician
University Teacher
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Baron Rees of Ludlow
Martin John Rees
Baron Rees of Ludlow
OM
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Lord Martin Rees
Professor Martin John Rees
Baron Rees of Ludlow
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More quotes by Martin Rees

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God invented space so that not everything had to happen in Princeton.
Martin Rees
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One of the computer models for a four degree temperature rise would give rise to a 10 degree temperature rise in Africa. And bear in mind also that in the depth of an ice age the mean temperature drop compared to the present was five degrees.
Martin Rees
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The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is measured. It's uncontroversial. It's going up. We know that has a tendency to warm the atmosphere and we should be worried about that.
Martin Rees
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Devastation could arise insidiously, rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. Indeed, these pressures are the prime 'threats without enemies' that confront us.
Martin Rees
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Experiments that crash atoms together could start a chain reaction that erodes everything on Earth.
Martin Rees
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In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it.
Martin Rees
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The U.S., France, Germany and Canada have all responded to the financial crisis by boosting rather than cutting their science funding. The U.K. has not.
Martin Rees
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I have no religious belief myself, but I don't think we should fight about it. In particular, I think that we should not rubbish moderate religious leaders like the Archbishop of Canterbury because I think we all agree that extreme fundamentalism is a threat, and we need all the allies we can muster against it.
Martin Rees
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It's better to read first rate science fiction than second rate science-it's a lot more fun, and no more likely to be wrong.
Martin Rees
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There may be organic life out there, or maybe machines created by long-dead civilizations, but any signals, even if they are difficult to decode, would tell us that the concepts of logic and physics are not limited to the hardware in human skulls, and will transform our view of the universe.
Martin Rees
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The important point there is that when people talk about a mean temperature rise of say two, three or four degrees that's a sort of global average which really is a signature of large scale change in climatic patterns.
Martin Rees
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To ensure continuing prosperity in the global economy, nothing is more important than the development and application of knowledge and skills.
Martin Rees
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I'm not myself religious but have no wish to insult or denigrate those who are.
Martin Rees
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I would support peaceful co-existence between religion and science because they concern different domains. Anyone who takes theology seriously knows that it's not a matter of using it to explain things that scientists are mystified by.
Martin Rees
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I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity-beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee.
Martin Rees
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In this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, but in new and different ways. Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, perhaps even implants into our brains - may change human beings themselves.
Martin Rees
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I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.
Martin Rees
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I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.
Martin Rees
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In the case of climate change, the threat is long-term and diffuse and requires broad international action for the benefit of people decades in the future. And in politics, the urgent always trumps the important, and that is what makes it a very difficult and challenging issue.
Martin Rees
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Scientists surely have a special responsibility. It is their ideas that form the basis of new technology. They should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should forgo experiments that are risky or unethical.
Martin Rees