Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Four good ones

Someone asked 150 top scientists what they thought we should be most worried about. I found four answers that traditionalists might be sympathetic to:
65. That we "are inarticulately lost in Modernity. Many of us seem to sense the end of something, perhaps a futile meaninglessness in our Modernity.” -- Stuart A. Kauffman, professor of biological sciences, physics, and astronomy

70. That Idiocracy is looming. –Douglas T. Kenrick, psychology professor

77. “I worry more and more about what will happen to the generations of children who don't have the uniquely human gift of a long, protected, stable childhood.” --Alison Gopnik

98. “What worries me is that the debate about gender differences still seems to polarize nature vs. nurture, with some in the social sciences and humanities wanting to assert that biology plays no role at all, apparently unaware of the scientific evidence to the contrary” -- Simon Baron-Cohen, psychologist

2 comments:

  1. Actually, it's 150 of "the world's smartest people". There are a lot of journalists, editors, and publishers on that list.

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  2. I think it's fitting to have journalists, editors and publishers on that list. You have to be pretty smart to set yourself up rule the world from a desktop publishing programme. Then again, following the liberal philosophy is not that smart, so I suppose that they cancel each other out.

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