Science Quote by Kary Mullis

Mullis is selling science as a perpetual engine of surprise, and he does it with the language of spectacle: “miraculous truths” and “dazzling devices.” Coming from a Nobel-winning scientist who also cultivated a contrarian, showman persona, the line isn’t a dry tribute to method; it’s a pitch for science as lived experience, the kind that keeps outrunning our intuitions. “Consistently” matters: progress isn’t framed as a lucky accident or a heroic once-in-a-century breakthrough, but as an annual harvest. That agricultural metaphor (“new crop”) quietly normalizes disruption. Whatever certainties you held last season, the field has been replanted.

The subtext is double-edged. Calling results “miraculous” flatters the public appetite for wonder, but it also slyly rebukes the idea that science is cold or finished. Mullis implies that awe is not the enemy of rigor; it’s one of its byproducts. At the same time, “dazzling devices” nods to the techno-optimist loop in which instruments drive discovery and discovery drives instruments. The sentence becomes a compact argument for funding, attention, and patience: keep the pipeline open and you get both truth (status) and gadgets (utility).

Context sharpens the intent. Mullis’s career was defined by a tool (PCR) that turned a conceptual insight into a world-changing device, accelerating biology, forensics, and medicine. The quote reads like autobiography disguised as general principle: science doesn’t just explain reality; it manufactures new ways to touch it, year after year, whether we’re ready or not.