danshawen
Valued Senior Member
No one here or elsewhere, in science, politics, or elsewhere seems willing to discuss this quote head-on. Perhaps this is reflection of Asimov's ponderous intellectual power, which was indeed exquisite. I was always a great fan of both his fiction and non-fiction works.
Karl Popper compared the scientific method to natural selection. Natural selection MADE you. It made your BRAIN. It made the way it works. And it also made your imune system.
What do we value most in terms of knowledge? Well, of course, it is knowledge that helps us to survive. Our brains, crafted by evolution, ignore billions of bits of irrelevant facts and data each and every second we live, gleaning from a torrent of information only those facts "truths" that are important to our continued survival. Do I have enough air? Do I have enough water? Where is my next meal coming from? Do I actually need to fear WWIII enough to dig a fallout shelter and stock it with food and weapons? I'd rather not, but you can make up your own mind as to whether you might wish to survive under those circumstances.
Some of us value the precision or exactitude of knowledge made available to us through science. For example, we know exactly how old our Sun is, because we monitored the neutrino flux over the last 40 years and this is a measure of how old it is. So science can tell us with some considerable precision exactly how much longer planet Earth will be able to support life and our own survival. What other kind of knowledge can tell you that? A fallout shelter won't help. Neither will guns.
Don't look to someone like president Trump to tell you. George Washington couldn't tell a lie, but Trump literally can't tell the difference, or else chooses to ignore the truth, which as we all know, is only a value, right? Those red states who all voted for him once valued having slaves over the rule of law set down in the U.S. Constitution, too.
Global warming is real. Mercury poisoning the environment from burning coal is as real as the threat from using leaded gasoline when I was growing up; the same stuff that rusted out mufflers and so you had to replace your entire exhaust system every three years. Smoking causes lung cancer, too, but since the red states are the ones still growing tobacco for recreational consumption, they can't seem to kick the habit of poisoning people while denying them adequate health care.
In a sense, the anti-vaxers are right. If vaccinations were not available, the human race would either need to adapt to new virus vectors, or else succumb to it in a pandemic and face mass extinction. Nature made you, and it surely can break you. Science and medicine won't always be there to save you unless you make the right value choices as consistently as nature does, and maybe that too is by design.
Now, go ahead and discuss the "Asimov manifesto".
Karl Popper compared the scientific method to natural selection. Natural selection MADE you. It made your BRAIN. It made the way it works. And it also made your imune system.
What do we value most in terms of knowledge? Well, of course, it is knowledge that helps us to survive. Our brains, crafted by evolution, ignore billions of bits of irrelevant facts and data each and every second we live, gleaning from a torrent of information only those facts "truths" that are important to our continued survival. Do I have enough air? Do I have enough water? Where is my next meal coming from? Do I actually need to fear WWIII enough to dig a fallout shelter and stock it with food and weapons? I'd rather not, but you can make up your own mind as to whether you might wish to survive under those circumstances.
Some of us value the precision or exactitude of knowledge made available to us through science. For example, we know exactly how old our Sun is, because we monitored the neutrino flux over the last 40 years and this is a measure of how old it is. So science can tell us with some considerable precision exactly how much longer planet Earth will be able to support life and our own survival. What other kind of knowledge can tell you that? A fallout shelter won't help. Neither will guns.
Don't look to someone like president Trump to tell you. George Washington couldn't tell a lie, but Trump literally can't tell the difference, or else chooses to ignore the truth, which as we all know, is only a value, right? Those red states who all voted for him once valued having slaves over the rule of law set down in the U.S. Constitution, too.
Global warming is real. Mercury poisoning the environment from burning coal is as real as the threat from using leaded gasoline when I was growing up; the same stuff that rusted out mufflers and so you had to replace your entire exhaust system every three years. Smoking causes lung cancer, too, but since the red states are the ones still growing tobacco for recreational consumption, they can't seem to kick the habit of poisoning people while denying them adequate health care.
In a sense, the anti-vaxers are right. If vaccinations were not available, the human race would either need to adapt to new virus vectors, or else succumb to it in a pandemic and face mass extinction. Nature made you, and it surely can break you. Science and medicine won't always be there to save you unless you make the right value choices as consistently as nature does, and maybe that too is by design.
Now, go ahead and discuss the "Asimov manifesto".
Last edited: