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Alan MacFarlane
(20 Dec 1941 - )
British social anthropologist and author who has written several books on historical anthropology, including topics varying from Witchcraft to the role of glass during the scientific revolution than began in the twelfth century.
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Science Quotes by Alan MacFarlane (1 quote)
We live in a glass-soaked civilization, but as for the bird in the Chinese proverb who finds it so difficult to discover air, the substance is almost invisible to us. To use a metaphor drawn from glass, it may be revealing for us to re-focus, to stop looking through glass, and let our eyes dwell on it for a moment to contemplate its wonder. [Co-author with Gerry Martin.]
— Alan MacFarlane
Glass: A World History (2002), 4.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
