Martin Rees

Martin John Rees (born 23 June 1942 in York), Baron Rees of Ludlow is an English cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge since 2004, and President of the Royal Society since 2005.

Sourced

• Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
  • quoted in Oliver, Bernard M.; Billingham, John (1971), "Life in the Universe", Project Cyclops: A Design Study of a System for Detecting Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life, NASA, NASA-CR-114445, retrieved on 2010-10-23 
  • quoted by Berendzen, Richard (20 November 1972), Life Beyond Earth & The Mind of Man (symposium), NASA, LCC QB54.L475, retrieved on 2010-10-23 
  • frequently misattributed to Carl Sagan

• Once the threshold is crossed when there is a self-sustaining level of life in space, then life's long-range future will be secure irrespective of any of the risks on Earth (with the single exception of the catastrophic destruction of space itself). Will this happen before our technical civilisation disintegrates, leaving this as a might-have-been? Will the self-sustaining space communities be established before a catastrophe sets back the prospect of any such enterprise, perhaps foreclosing it for ever? We live at what could be a defining moment for the cosmos, not just for our Earth.
  • Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning, New York: Basic Books, 18 March 2003, LCC CB161.R38 2003, ISBN 9780465068623 

About Martin Rees

• This is exactly the kind of thing Templeton is ceaselessly angling for – recognition among real scientists – and they use their money shamelessly to satisfy their doomed craving for scientific respectability. They tried it on with the Royal Society of London, and they seem to have found a compliant Quisling in the current President, Martin Rees, who, though not religious himself, is a fervent 'believer in belief'.
  • Richard Dawkins (22 March 2010), Shame on the National Academy, retrieved on 2011-05-31 
  • on the US National Academy of Sciences agreeing to host the announcement of the 2010 Templeton Prize