Flossie Wong-Staal (1947-)

Flossie Wong-Staal received her Ph.D. in molecular biology from UCLA and conducted postdoctoral work at UCSD. She was a research investigator at the National Cancer Institute and Section Chief of Molecular Genetics of Hematopoietic Cells in the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology. Dr. Wong-Staal serves on the editorial board of many journals and is the Florence Riford Professor in AIDS Research.

Books from Alibris: HIV Research

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

Books from Alibris: Alfred North Whitehead

Niara Sudarkasa (1945-)

To most people in Awe [Aawe] I was known only in the role of researcher.. A relatively small group of women, ranging in age from about twenty five to forty, became my friends. We used the term “Ore” [oore] (literally, “friend”) as one would use a personal name. This was the group of women with whom I often exchanged visits and presents, for whom I did special favors . with whom I gossiped, to whom I went for advice ... whom I reported most of my movements, and whenever I was away from the town, it was from them that people made inquiries about my whereabouts. Ore [Oore] were the only ones in town who regularly called me aside to give me advice on personal matters.. If I wanted straightforward information on anything going on in the town, I went to ... my special friend. Whenever anything happened about which they thought I had not heard, they would send someone to inform me. - Sudarkasa, Niara. “Female Employment and Family Organization in West Africa.” The Black Women Cross-Culturally. Ed. Filomina Chioma Steady. Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1981, (205-206)

Books from Alibris: Afro-American Anthropology

Nettie Maria Stevens (1861-1912)

Modern cytological work involves an intricacy of detail, the significance of which can be appreciated by the specialist alone; but Miss Stevens had a share in a discovery of importance, and her work will be remembered for this, when the minutiae of detailed investigations that she carried out have become incorporated in the general body of the subject. - Tribute by Geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945), following Nettie Stevens' death in 1912

Books from Alibris: Women in Science

Baron Charles Percy (C.P.) Snow (1905-1980)

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.

Books from Alibris: C. P. Snow

Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961)

The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist.

Books from Alibris: Erwin Schrodinger

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Books from Alibris: Bertrand Russell

Max Planck (1858-1947)

With religious people, God appears at the beginning of their thinking, with natural scientists, at the end.

Books from Alibris: Max Planck

Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.

Books from Alibris: Wolfgang Pauli

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)

The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance - these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.

Books from Alibris: Robert Oppenheimer

Maria Montessori (1870-1952)

We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.

Books from Alibris: Maria Montessori

Lise Meitner (1878-1968)

Life need not be easy, provided only that it is not empty.

Books from Alibris: Lise Meitner

Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter.

Books from Alibris: Margaret Mead

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992)

There is no question that plants have [all] kinds of sensitivities. But just because they sit there, anybody walking down the road considers them just a plastic area to look at, [as if] they're not really alive.

Books from Alibris: Barbara McClintock

Rebecca Craighill Lancefield (1895-1981)

Lancefield became a full member and professor in 1958 and emeritus professor in 1965. While her career and achievements took place in a field dominated by men, Lewis Wannamaker in American Society for Microbiology News quotes Lancefield as being "annoyed by any special feeling about women in science." In Profiles of Pioneer Women Scientists, Elizabeth O'Hern cites Lancefield as saying that women "sometimes expect too much." Nevertheless, most recognition for Lancefield came near her retirement. In 1961, she was the first woman elected president of the American Association of Immunologists, and in 1970 she was one of few women elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Other honors included the T. Duckett Jones Memorial Award in 1960, the American Heart Association Achievement Award in 1964, the New York Academy of Medicine Medal in 1973, and honorary degrees from Rockefeller University in 1973 and Wellesley College in 1976.

Books from Alibris: Women in Science

Thomas Kuhn (1922-)

It is, I think, particularly in periods of acknowledged crisis that scientists have turned to philosophical analysis as a device for unlocking the riddles of their field. Scientists have not generally needed or wanted to be philosophers.

Books from Alibris: Thomas Kuhn

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994)

She will be remembered as a great chemist, a saintly gentle and tolerant lover of people, and a devoted protagonist of world peace. - M.F. Perutz

Books from Alibris: Dorothy Hodgkin

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.

Books from Alibris: Werner Heisenberg

Stephen W. Hawking (1942-)

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.

Books from Alibris: Stephen W. Hawking

Jane Goodall (1934-)

I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: from the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.

Books from Alibris: Jane Goodall