Peter Medawar Quote

We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility; but there is one high poetic fancy in the New Atlantis that stays in the mind after all its fancies and inventions have been forgotten. In the New Atlantis, an island kingdom lying in very distant seas, the only commodity of external trade is — light: Bacon's own special light, the light of understanding.


On Francis Bacon's New Atlantis - Presidential Address, 1969


We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility;...

We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility;...

We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility;...

We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility;...