> At 10:53 AM 12/12/96 -0600, zaimoni@ksu.edu wrote:
> >On Mon, 9 Dec 1996, Richard Brodie wrote:
> >
> >> [RB: Zander inadvertently sent this reply just to me, and asked that I
> >> forward it to the list. This is Alexander speaking:]
> >>
> >> Richard Brodie wrote:
> >> > This is because it's usually (paradoxically) a very ineffective means of
> >> > communicating a new paradigm to come right out and say what you mean,
> >> > which is why I try other methods. Smart people easily seize upon
> >> > whatever conflicts with their existing world view and
> >> > ridicule/marginalize the new perspective. But go on...
> >>
> >> On the other hand, in science rather than in marketing, saying what you
2> >> mean is typically looked on in a more favourable light. I'd like to
> >> think what we do on this list is more akin to science than salesmanship.
> >
> >Is this why science is inadequately funded?
> >
>
> Gee - i think that science is rather well funded (i was at the
> Cape for the Mars launch 2 weeks ago - very cool) and that
> scientists are rather well paid (but i would not turn down a
> raise!).
>
> On a somewhat separate subject, i am reading a book "The End
> of Science". Its main topic is that most of the basic science
> (e.g., evolution, quantum mechanics, relativity) has already
> been discovered and all that is left to do is flush it out and
> invent new gizmos. After all, once you find out the fundamental
> forces of nature, what else is left to do? Thoughts?
Since Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are currently mutually
incompatible, neither of these is *quite* the final theory yet.
That book was equally current in 1890! Just change a few names....
Seriously. The ideas in that book are quite old, and were part of the
extreme opposition to Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.
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/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
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/ Kenneth Boyd
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