Science Tomorrow People
posted by on March 11 at 11:26 AM
A comment on this article concerning new data about the expanding universe:
“We are living in an extraordinary time,” said Gary Hinshaw of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Ours is the first generation in human history to make such detailed and far-reaching measurements of our universe.”
How is it that we of all the people in the history of time (and beyond time), all the billions who have come and gone, flickered and vanished—not them but the us of today are living “in an extraordinary time”? How did that come to be? How can we be so sure of this exception? And will the people of tomorrow recognize us as the modes and mediums of an extraordinary moment?
While reading the ancient Greeks, our scientific minds cringe in embarrassment when passing the pages that concern their unscientific ideas and concepts about the heavens. Will the people of tomorrow cringe when reading that the people of today believed there is a “sea of cosmic neutrinos [that] permeates the universe,” and “that the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog”? Will the people of tomorrow see in us the same children that we see in the Greeks of yesterday?
Note: Plato’s most brilliant intellectual move in the The Republic is not his feminism (the second wave), nor his concept of the philosopher as ruler (the third wave), but the way he downplays astronomy. What’s important for him are not celestial objects but what is most real, and what is most real are the forms. And so to intellectually grasp (begriff) the form of a stone is far better than staring at a bright and wandering star. Because Plato, unlike Aristotle, gives astronomy almost no play in his most important work, he doesn’t look like a complete fool, a child of our day.
Yes, Charles, the people of tomorrow will cringe. This I have no doubt of.
He said we're living in an extraordinary time. Not the extraordinary time.
Statements like "We're living in an ordinarily usual time" don't tend to get repeated much, or picked over by prickly Marxists, though.
Don't think so. Back in the day observation were for the most part unscientific. Since then Bacon developed the scientific method and Descartes developed a philosophy of inquiry. That is why we are able to laugh at the pinheads who think Adam and Eve rode on the back of Brontosaurs. People of tomorrow may cringe at the depth of our understanding, but not at the quality.
The people of tomorrow (assuming we don't destroy our planet's capacity to support our species) will cringe at our philistine religious views, our backwards social views regarding drugs and sexuality, and all of the medieval superstitions that still plague our societies. I don't think they'll find our scientific achievements regarding the universe in which we live as any more ridiculous than modern scientists view the work of Newton.
He qualifies his statement of "extraordinary time" by stating we are the first in "human history" to have such detailed measurements of the universe.
Really, you should learn your english.
By your logic, we should just give up research for fear our ancestors will "cringe" at our discoveries.
Will the people of tomorrow view marxism as even more ridiculous a concept than it is today? evolution of knowledge is nothing to be afraid of and should not dissuade exploration of our knowledge of the cosmos.
This new learning amazes me, Muedede.
Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes?
I think we should go back to the slave states that were ancient Greece and Rome.
Not.
Most people of today also cringe when they read Plato's description of the ideal society, which is basically a semi-benevolent fascist state.
I think you're all missing the point (or I am possibly). Charles seems to be saying that we shouldnt trumpet our progress because there will be more progress in the future that might refute what we did. But this fear of being wrong should never stop us from trying to further our progress in knowledge as Charles thinks it should.
We aren't embarrassed by outdated scientific ideas if they were the result of applying rigorous scientific methods to the data that was available at that point. Some of Einstein's ideas have been discredited because we have better tools now, but no one thinks he was a fool.
They'll probably look at us the same way we look at Netwon. His findings and theories were based on evidence and observation and advanced our understandings. However at a fundamental level they were wrong.
Greek science was not based on any real data. Instead it was what we would best describe as a guess, a guess built on assumptions about how the universe should be.
It is entirely possible that like Newtonian Physics Quantum theory is not perse true. However to say it is not a good approximation of the way the universe works would be unfair. It has far to much evidence behind it.
And really at no time in human history have possessed both the skills and technology to reach verifiable scientific truths about the universe and ourselves.
People of the future will discover that the cosmos is composed entirely of attractitrons and repellitrons. In equal parts. They will also discover that gravity is not a force pulling in, but a pushing from without. Once these discoveries have been made, Matter will be manipulated like bread dough and Gravity will used like electricity. But people will still take naps.
AND THEN I FELT MY MIND SPLIT OPEN!
For Mudede to post these self-indulgent quandries over and over again is curious. It shows not only that he is a very interested person--someone fond of exploring the details of "things", but also that he revels in the outpour of responses to his exploration. Tell us Charles, what is more important to you? Your findings or the responses to your findings?
@15, what are you getting at?
That you're a troll?
I tend to agree that the Scientific Method will withstand the test of time, as it has so far. That said, people of the future will scoff at our internal combustion engines, attempts at nuclear power, and utter destruction of the environment.
Well Chuck,
If it is any comfort to you, I am sure they will “cringe in embarrassment” if they ever have the terrible (though gob smackingly unlikely) misfortune of having to read the pasty drivel you ladle out as "deep thought".
Let's not forget, in spite of the fact that Bugs Bunny as Christopher Colombus threw a baseball around the world to prove it was round, the Greeks had measured the circumference millenia before.
While it's tempting to dismiss the models the measurements persist.
If Sherry would just come back, it'd be all right.
In other news, I took a giant dump today. It hurt quite a bit when it was coming out, but once it was all the way out, I definitely felt relief.
Also, I had some great nachos at lunch. They had cheese on them.
Tomorrow, I am going to call my friend Rob.
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