Question: Do you have a personal philosophy?
Transcript: It sounds a little bit too arrogant, but I think I certainly have a working model for how I conduct my life, and it may or may not be a correct worldview. I think that a lot of what we have are a set of accidents. And there is design in the world, and there will be lots of design going forward. And it’s an opportunity to embrace both the natural and the synthetic. There’s a lot of what’s natural is painful, and a lot of what’s synthetic is not completely thought out, but offers an alternative. My worldview is that dynamic between design and past and future. The parts of nature that we like, and the parts of nature which, for one reason or another, because of say population explosion is still natural, but it’s ________. It’s pathological from our human viewpoint, and we need to embrace ecology in a very intelligent way. And this requires that our politicians and regular folks know a great deal more about ecology in their world and their personal diversity than they currently know.
Discuss
william miller on January 16, 2008, 3:47 PM
"It's kind of an act of faith that science is a good thing…"
I don't need faith or belief to come up with a reason why science is a good thing. I'm fairly certain, let's say 96.5% sure, that I'd rather be alive in Massachussetts today or in the near future than to be living in:
I. Spain during the Inquisition
II. Europe during the Dark Ages
III. Anywhere on Earth before, say, antibiotics were discovered
The fact that so many more people today have basic comforts like food and shelter can largely be attributed to science and its manifestation in technology. I think the survival of the human species
arguably a good thingis far less probable were we to scrap science completely and turn to some other mode of thinking.william miller on January 16, 2008, 8:47 PM
“It’s kind of an act of faith that science is a good thing…”
I don’t need faith or belief to come up with a reason why science is a good thing. I’m fairly certain, let’s say 96.5% sure, that I’d rather be alive in Massachussetts today or in the near future than to be living in:
I. Spain during the Inquisition
II. Europe during the Dark Ages
III. Anywhere on Earth before, say, antibiotics were discovered
The fact that so many more people today have basic comforts like food and shelter can largely be attributed to science and its manifestation in technology. I think the survival of the human species
arguably a good thingis far less probable were we to scrap science completely and turn to some other mode of thinking.Lee Bob Black on August 18, 2009, 10:28 AM
Steven Pinker and and George Church on a NOVA scienceNOW segment, Public Genomes; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0406/01.html
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