Science & Tech Quote by Tony Snow

Snow’s move here is to concede the messiness of science without letting that concession become ammunition for cynicism. “Sure” is doing heavy lifting: it anticipates the eye-roll, the talk-radio jab that scientists are always “changing their minds,” and it absorbs the critique before redirecting it. Trial and error becomes not a bug but the engine. In a media ecosystem that prizes certainty and treats revision as weakness, he reframes revision as integrity.

The key phrase is “refine theories each day.” That daily cadence makes science feel less like a distant priesthood and more like work: incremental, disciplined, accountable to evidence. Snow, a journalist and political communicator, understands the audience’s suspicion of expertise. He answers it with a narrative of progress that’s modest in method and expansive in payoff.

Then he pivots to “wonders,” a word that softens the hard edges of “theories” and “refine.” It’s a strategic blend of rationalism and awe, positioning scientific literacy as emotionally rewarding rather than merely correct. Subtext: you don’t have to choose between humility and meaning. Science can admit uncertainty and still deliver a clearer picture of reality.

Context matters: Snow came of age in the late Cold War and worked through an era when climate science, evolution, and public health were increasingly politicized. The quote reads like a defense of the scientific temperament against a culture that confuses confidence with truth. It’s persuasion by tone: calm, patriotic in its faith in inquiry, quietly impatient with the demand for perfect, final answers.