Originally posted by miniminch
It reminds me that science has truly not furthered man one inch - surely the topic for a new thread.


Can we have some terms of reference please?

what is "science"?

if man is 'furthered', what does this mean?

Is it possible to measure?

Presumably not in inches, so what, for the purposes of this discsussion, would constitute an inch of furtherment?

I am SOOOOO glad I did not post that!!!!:P

Just a tad unnecessary, I think. I mean you could break it down until the cows come home: which terms of reference need to be defined before we begin? Can we all agree on the terms of referrence? It all gets rather silly. The thread collapses in a quagmire before it has chance to get started. If we had to define all terms of reference before each thread (for example defining First Mainline before commencing a discussion over the unreliability of buses), it'd make for a very heavy going forum.

So miniminch, to kickoff: heart transplants. A teenager who has a heart/lung transplant has, let's say, thirty years added onto his life, thanks to advances in surgery and biological knowledge (a branch of science, I'm sure we can agree on that). To me, mankind has been furthered by this scientific breakthrough. How would you counter that?

Science has helped me be nearer to my son, who lives in Malvern. I miss seeing him, and hearing his voice, a lot.

So the car helps reduce the distance between us, as we are able to visit each other via this means of transport.

The telephone assists us to hear each other's voice.

E-mail allows us to keep in touch surprisingly quickly, and is quicker and more efficient than snail mail.

The forum has also brought us closer together, as we are both members, and have shared funny posts, and similar.

Science has furthered our interests, and by more than an inch.

Imagine life without electricity - no internet for a start

Imagine life without medication or hospitals

Antibiotics have saved untold millions of lives. Imagine what it was like back when you could die from a simple infection.

Of course science has further man an inch. According to some products, anything up to 6 inches.

Hasn't done a lot for woman, though...

penicilin, the plow, irrigation, sheffield forum.

I cant believe noone has mentioned the spork :roll:

But are the things that you all mentioned science or engineering?

Originally posted by speeed
But are the things that you all mentioned science or engineering?

Engineering is merely applied science.

Engineering invented the inch and therefore this thread.

Originally posted by redrobbo
Science has helped me be nearer to my son, who lives in Malvern. I miss seeing him, and hearing his voice, a lot.

So the car helps reduce the distance between us, as we are able to visit each other via this means of transport.

The telephone assists us to hear each other's voice.

E-mail allows us to keep in touch surprisingly quickly, and is quicker and more efficient than snail mail.

The forum has also brought us closer together, as we are both members, and have shared funny posts, and similar.

Science has furthered our interests, and by more than an inch.

If it wasn't for these so called 'break throughs' in the science of transportation the chances are your son would live in your own community meaning you would see him more. The car means that people can live in a community and work miles from it. Effectively meaning that you spend a hige propotion of your day with people you probably wouldn't pass in the street.

next!

Originally posted by Ant

So miniminch, to kickoff: heart transplants. A teenager who has a heart/lung transplant has, let's say, thirty years added onto his life, thanks to advances in surgery and biological knowledge (a branch of science, I'm sure we can agree on that). To me, mankind has been furthered by this scientific breakthrough. How would you counter that?

Thanks to medicine we can all live longer than we should and carry disease and therefore genetic defects further in to the future. Diseases, that would have been irradcated by a natural process are supported and prolonged thanks to science. It has increased our length of suffering.

Next!

Originally posted by mojoworking
Imagine life without electricity - no internet for a start



Imagine a world where humans slept when it was dark (therefore longer in the winter) Where humans were less tired and less stressed. We have evolved to live like this, not how we live not now driven by the clock.

Originally posted by miniminch
Imagine a world where humans slept when it was dark (therefore longer in the winter) Where humans were less tired and less stressed. We have evolved to live like this, not how we live not now driven by the clock.

imagine a world where those who slept longer starved to death because they should have been out hunting all day merely to stay alive.
Imagine the stress of not having enough food, not knowing if you'll get anymore and being on the verge of starvation. Imagine how tired you be when you could only sleep in a cold damn cave because we hadn't invented central heating and you couldn't sleep deeply in case something decided you looked tasty.

Don't fall for the lapsarkian fantasy of cave men sunning themselves on a tropical beach all day before taking a quick swim and killing something juicy for dinner after a few minutes walking through a pleasant woodland.

Originally posted by miniminch
Thanks to medicine we can all live longer than we should and carry disease and therefore genetic defects further in to the future. Diseases, that would have been irradcated by a natural process are supported and prolonged thanks to science. It has increased our length of suffering.

Next!

thanks to medicine we don't have a child mortality rate of 4 in 5. Thanks to medicine a bout of cold or flu won't lead to pneumonia and kill you before you're 30.
Disease does not equate to genetic defect, living longer is irrelevant as far as evolution is concerned once you've managed to breed. There are a few cases where you are correct, modern medicine keeps people alive and allows them to have children who would have died due to a genetic problem, but the numbers are so small as to be irrelevant.

Originally posted by miniminch
If it wasn't for these so called 'break throughs' in the science of transportation the chances are your son would live in your own community meaning you would see him more. The car means that people can live in a community and work miles from it. Effectively meaning that you spend a hige propotion of your day with people you probably wouldn't pass in the street.

next!

you wouldn't see him more though because he'd have to spend all his time trying to get food to eat as would yourself and the rest of your family.
There would be no leisure time to enjoy each others company, and nothing to talk about or do if you happened to find a few minutes spare.

in any evolutionary measure, scientific method has revealed principles, the application of which has made homo sapiens supremely fit, and has resulted in the species colonising virtually every corner of the globe and breeding in ever increasing numbers.

there's no teleology at work here, just nature unfolding as it will. The emergence of self-aware, self directed, tool using apes, and subsequently the vast store of extra-somatic knowledge, has led us to this point of scientific 'advancement'

I would question the entire notion of furtherment and progression as a hangup from the Victorian notion; that all could be mastered with a sufficient quantity of cast iron and that utopia awaited those who trod the path of human progress.

Science and Technology has, in the hands of men, made and broken civilisations.

if you want to point to one scientific technology that brought us all our ills, then you need look no further than the development of agriculture, and a grain surplus. This gave us cities, trade, mammon, war, etc.

case closed.

Originally posted by Cyclone
imagine a world where those who slept longer starved to death because they should have been out hunting all day merely to stay alive.
Imagine the stress of not having enough food, not knowing if you'll get anymore and being on the verge of starvation. Imagine how tired you be when you could only sleep in a cold damn cave because we hadn't invented central heating and you couldn't sleep deeply in case something decided you looked tasty.

Don't fall for the lapsarkian fantasy of cave men sunning themselves on a tropical beach all day before taking a quick swim and killing something juicy for dinner after a few minutes walking through a pleasant woodland.
People who live by their natures have harder lives no doubt but they don't suffer from boredom, pointlessness and stress. These are all by-products of advanced recreation caused by your phoney notion of progress. Our ability to keep thousands of humans alive should not make you marvel at science's dominance. It should make you realise that our sucess as a species has condemed millions to die unnessicarily of poverty and war,

And I'm with phan on this. Grain = vast cities = total destruction of other species and ultrmately ourselves.

I do not have a romantic view of how people who live by the rules of nature exist. I just believe that as an alternative to mass population - concretisation - meaddowhell - telecommunications - humans surviving beyond their ability to have a decent life - mass polution - war -people everywhere - non contact communication - isolationism - capital expansion - rabid capitalism - the outlawing of natural products - it is a better way for people to be.

next!!!!

Originally posted by miniminch
People who live by their natures have harder lives no doubt but they don't suffer from boredom, pointlessness and stress. These are all by-products of advanced recreation caused by your phoney notion of progress. Our ability to keep thousands of humans alive should not make you marvel at science's dominance. It should make you realise that our sucess as a species has condemed millions to die unnessicarily of poverty and war,

And I'm with phan on this. Grain = vast cities = total destruction of other species and ultrmately ourselves.

I do not have a romantic view of how people who live by the rules of nature exist. I just believe that as an alternative to mass population - concretisation - meaddowhell - telecommunications - humans surviving beyond their ability to have a decent life - mass polution - war -people everywhere - non contact communication - isolationism - capital expansion - rabid capitalism - the outlawing of natural products - it is a better way for people to be.

next!!!!

I believe that my life is more comfortable with all the benefits of technology, even taking into account the stress generated, than it would be if I were living in a cave and hunting/gathering 14hrs a day merely to live long enough to procreate.
If you don't then why don't you opt out of the rat race and go live in a commune.

I think there is good and bad with science ... as there is good and bad intention in human beings.

As for us being suprememly fit ...

The problem with too much strength, too much fitness, is that it leads to inbalance. Strength in one part of a system, will create a weakness in another part. That goes for both people as individual beings, and for human society and our species as a whole.

Harmony and balance ...

is there 'bad' science, or is there science applied in a bad way or used by bad people?

Originally posted by Cyclone
I believe that my life is more comfortable with all the benefits of technology, even taking into account the stress generated, than it would be if I were living in a cave and hunting/gathering 14hrs a day merely to live long enough to procreate.
If you don't then why don't you opt out of the rat race and go live in a commune. I think if you were conected more to the food that you eat and you saw the imediate benefits from the activity you undertook to get that food, you would have more respect for your planet and for yourself. I would argue that the stress of modern life is more than say people who live in the rain forest. May be you are more comfortable in a pyhsical sense but modern people become disconected from real life by science and stand in horror before nature! If you caught what you ate like most 'natural animals' you would have more respect for the food you ate and you would be engaged be the process of finding your lunch. After all they hide food in zoos so he animals keep their brains active. Humans just use tv and playstations to do the same.

Originally posted by miniminch
I think if you were conected more to the food that you eat and you saw the imediate benefits from the activity you undertook to get that food, you would have more respect for your planet and for yourself. I would argue that the stress of modern life is more than say people who live in the rain forest. May be you are more comfortable in a pyhsical sense but modern people become disconected from real life by science and stand in horror before nature! If you caught what you ate like most 'natural animals' you would have more respect for the food you ate and you would be engaged be the process of finding your lunch. After all they hide food in zoos so he animals keep their brains active. Humans just use tv and playstations to do the same.

firstly, this is real life. There's nothing unnatural per se about what we have done, it's a natural extension of our basic tool making abilities.
Secondly, what has the level of respect I have for the planet got to do with my standard of living? I'm sure I would be engaged more in finding my lunch, to the point where I had no time to do anything else, what a fun existance that sounds like.
A stress response developed for a reason by evolution, so it stands to reason that there are natural conditions which arise which evoke a stress response, so we've no reason to assume that 'stress' is a modern problem.
Science doesn't disconnect people from nature, it gives us a framework to understand nature and predict it. Engineers can use these models to create clever devices that make life easier for us.

Originally posted by miniminch
I think if you were conected more to the food that you eat and you saw the imediate benefits from the activity you undertook to get that food, you would have more respect for your planet and for yourself. I would argue that the stress of modern life is more than say people who live in the rain forest. May be you are more comfortable in a pyhsical sense but modern people become disconected from real life by science and stand in horror before nature! If you caught what you ate like most 'natural animals' you would have more respect for the food you ate and you would be engaged be the process of finding your lunch. After all they hide food in zoos so he animals keep their brains active. Humans just use tv and playstations to do the same.

I agree. I also think that science is intrinsicaly bound up with capitalist profit driven motives so it cannot be objectively judged on its own merits.

Originally posted by kathythebean
I agree. I also think that science is intrinsicaly bound up with capitalist profit driven motives so it cannot be objectively judged on its own merits.

most scientists study for the sake of it and do so whether there is profit in it or not. Inventors and Engineers are looking for a profit, not science itself. Science is just a framework for understanding the universe.

Originally posted by Cyclone
firstly, this is real life. There's nothing unnatural per se about what we have done, it's a natural extension of our basic tool making abilities.

No but there's nothing unnatural about a mass extinction event either. Our idividual tool making abilities are far in advance of our collective ability to manage ourselves.

I think you are incorrect in your idea of a "lapsarian" fantasy. Whilst I don't believe in the fall from grace, the loss of eden etc as literal stories, early literature commonly invokes an archaic paradise.

Your image of cold, fur clad cavemen staring through the drizzle for sight of a small furry mammal to eat is probably a bit inaccurate.

Early humans soon became beach dwellers, because of the endless and plentiful supply of food - and when they realised fishing and picking shellfish was much easier than beating Sabre Tooth Tigers in single combat. For quite a few humans (all the ones that followed the beaches from the red sea to Australia), life was probably pretty good.

Originally posted by Cyclone
[B]
A stress response developed for a reason by evolution, so it stands to reason that there are natural conditions which arise which evoke a stress response, so we've no reason to assume that 'stress' is a modern problem.

Well, i think we do actually. Stress and anxiety are the subjective effects of an organism faced with immediate peril. When we get stressed about our salary, car tax etc, whe are igniting the same survival mechanism evolved to help us run faster from bears. We dump pints of cortisol and adrenalin in to our bloodsystem when the boss starts shouting at us. The Stress reaction is meant to be a paroxysm to get you out of danger, but in our modern world, it is becoming a debilitating reaction to almost everything.

The world stresses humans out becausethey are gradually losing control over their environment and circumstances. You know that you can't just turn around and use your adrenal high to sprint away from your shouty boss, cos you know you'll lose your job - more stress.

One of the most stressful things for us in the UK is money. Money is your key to biological survival. Without money, and a means of biological survival, the typical human will experience stress and anxiety. Without money, your biological survival depends on your wits, not some dopey git in payroll.

Originally posted by Cyclone

Science doesn't disconnect people from nature, it gives us a framework to understand nature and predict it. Engineers can use these models to create clever devices that make life easier for us.

"Make life easier for us".....

How easy do you want it?

I think you just gave mini the QED he was looking for!

Originally posted by Cyclone
most scientists study for the sake of it and do so whether there is profit in it or not. Inventors and Engineers are looking for a profit, not science itself. Science is just a framework for understanding the universe.

Most scientists either teach or do paid for research. To pay scientists you need money. To get money you need to make it. To make money you need to either a) print it yourself b)get it from other people in return for something.

If you are selling stuffl to fund your research, you want research that gives you things to sell....

Let's consider a hypothetical situation that takes place in the not-too distant future.

Scientists have designed and constructed a cheap and reliable method of deflecting Asteroid K35-B, a colossal lump of rock which was on a collision course with Earth. If there were no scientists working on both the invention itself and the technology that enabled its construction, the earth would be devastated, and all human life wiped out, with tremendous suffering. Because the scientists designed, built and successfully deployed the instrument to save all human life, we all are able to carry on our lives as we wish.

Furthering mankind rather dramatically, I'd say, and the technology to build the instrument is probably with us today.

Most scientists either teach or do paid for research. To pay scientists you need money. To get money you need to make it. To make money you need to either a) print it yourself b)get it from other people in return for something.

You are confusing science with capitalism, surely? I find the money-orientated world we live in - especially here in the west, makes for an often cruel, cold and cut-throat environment. Science makes for a wonderful world with near infinite exiting possibilities.

Phan and mini, please tell me that you're not both saying it's better to be rained upon than developing even the most basic technology to build yourselves a nice wooden roof? You could sew yourselves a deer-skin roof, but that would necessitate the unwanted technological advances of the needle. :hihi:

Thanks to medicine we can all live longer than we should and carry disease and therefore genetic defects further in to the future. Diseases, that would have been irradcated by a natural process are supported and prolonged thanks to science. It has increased our length of suffering.

What about the thirty extra years a heart transplant would give to a child to experience a relationship with a father she wouldn't otherwise have even remembered?

Ant, your faith in science and scientists is touching. Here's my hypothetical situation.

Scientists working at the North Korean High Energy Physics and Innocuous Hobbies lab accidentally create a new fundamental antiparticle that annuls the entire universe.

US microbiologists accidentally release super-flu virus

Australian Scientists release infertility virus into wild rabbit population. Virus unexpectedly mutates and transmits into human population. Human race extinct within 2 generations.

Scientists accidentally send out dozens of vials of ferocious smallpox virus. (happened a few months ago)

Einstein had it in a nutshell with his aphorism that I will apply to Science here

a perfection of means and a confusion of goals

As for deflecting, say , 150 million billion (150,000,000,000,000,000) tons of rock flying towards the earth at 15 kilometers per second...... I'd be interested to hear the theory behind anything that could deflect that.


I guess what I am driving at is that Science, paid for or not, it pretty blameless, as its merely a refinement of simple observational deduction.

However, technology derived from that science has, unquestionably, allowed us to be beastly to one another in hitherto unimaginably horrible and wholesale ways. Both opn purpose and by accident.

Has technology furthered us?

Well, from the perspective of the selfish gene, yes. We have colonised everything and are in the process of leaving the planet. We have stopped physical natural selection on a crude level, by giving people glasses, drugs, heart transplants and so on.

But have we furthered ourselves with technology at all? Well that rather depends on what you see as an ideal state for humanity.

If the current state of humanity as a whole is closer to the particular state you visualise, then yes, it has furthered us towards something desireable.

So, perhaps on an individual level it is easy to appreciate the comforts and luxuries of a technologically advanced life.

Science eh?! I loved the practical experiments at school but hated the theory.

Anyway, back to the thread - I have learned an enormous amount from television (yup, some people derise it) but I know about plate techtronics, weather systems, how tall buildings are built to withstand wind etc, I know what's going on in all parts of the world. I know more about the universe, how stars form and die, etc etc, I wouldn't know half as much without television (a scientific development).

What about all the benefits of space exploration? Things we take for granted like Teflon etc?

I love to watch the science programmes on TV and learn more about so many things I wouldn't be able to access otherwise.

Technology - telephones, internet, mobile phones, video/dvd, etc all a bonus to me.

Remember the news reports that used to have that awful time lapse when talking between UK and USA? It flows so well now - thanks to science and technology. Buildings are built to withstand earthquakes - thanks to science and technology, crops planeted in third world countries thrive better than ever - thanks to science and technology. Of course there are down sides to it, but we live in the safest most secure and well-fed generation yet. I hope things will improve further to ensure no-one ever has to starve to death - it's all down to science and technology.

And just think of the crimes that are solved these days due to DNA evidence etc, and people who have prothsetic limbs and can live a near normal life rather than be totally disabled? Yup, all down to science and technology.

It's easy to knock it, but without it we'd still be living a much poorer life (IMHO)

My little neice loves science at school, she's only 8 and she wants to be a scientist - bless her and good luck to her.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Most scientists either teach or do paid for research. To pay scientists you need money. To get money you need to make it. To make money you need to either a) print it yourself b)get it from other people in return for something.


In order to be able to do anything other than search for your own food, someone else has to have a surplus. They exchange this surplus food with you for some other labour, a basic bargaining based economy.
If a big enough group of people have a surplus, they can give food to someone who will spend time thinking about stuff. The idea being that when he comes up with a good idea, ie the plow, that idea will be used to benefit everyone, more surplus food is generated, now only 1 man works to feed all the rest, and the rest perform other jobs for the society in exchange for the food.

Food production is still the basis of our entire economy. The cheaper it gets, the less work is put in by the society as a whole to feed itself and the more effort is left to go around doing other stuff.

I won't argue that science and engineering can't be used for bad ends, and the increased power technology gives us, gives us an increased ability to inflict harm. It also gives us the same ability to do good.
So the argument is basically about human nature. The level of technology is irrelevant really, it simply empowers us to extend our behaviour to cover a greater number of people, ultimately allowing one person to affect everyone on the planet, whether that be for good or for bad.
Since we havn't caused our own extinction yet, on balance i'd say that we're still scoring +'ve from science. If we kill ourselves, then i guess we've lost.

So, here's an impossible and vague question:

Has science saved or destroyed more lives?

Originally posted by Andy78
So, here's an impossible and vague question:

Has science saved or destroyed more lives?

neither.
measured over any reasonable time period it has had no effect, as everyone dies eventually. Only if you look at a very short timescale could you even begin to come up with a answer to that.

A more reasonable question might be has it lengthened or shortened more lives?

Originally posted by Cyclone
neither.
measured over any reasonable time period it has had no effect, as everyone dies eventually. Only if you look at a very short timescale could you even begin to come up with a answer to that.

A more reasonable question might be has it lengthened or shortened more lives?

Agreed!

Science has failed post menopausal women everywhere because it can neither stop nor even explain, to our satisfaction, why our eye lashes and brows fail to grow back where they belong but suddenly start to grow out of our chins

Originally posted by Andy78
So, here's an impossible and vague question:

Has science saved or destroyed more lives?

I would say "saved more", just the number of people who would have died from malaria/smallpox/TB/pneumonia who haven't because they have been wiped-out in a lot of countries must be in the millions more than the number killed by wars etc.

Originally posted by nick2
I would say "saved more", just the number of people who would have died from malaria/smallpox/TB/pneumonia who haven't because they have been wiped-out in a lot of countries must be in the millions more than the number killed by wars etc.

I was thinking that these days, more people are being saved as medicine advances, and the casualties of war decrease, but I think in the past it was probably the other way round. Wars took far more lives and medicine was in its infancy. So, it could well be that it's starting to balance out. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Andy78
I was thinking that these days, more people are being saved as medicine advances, and the casualties of war decrease, but I think in the past it was probably the other way round. Wars took far more lives and medicine was in its infancy. So, it could well be that it's starting to balance out. :rolleyes:

farming is surely the one that's made the most difference. It supports a population that wouldn't be possible in any other way. So without the science behind that most of the worlds population could never have existed.

So technology allowed us to expand our population and horde resources with the end result that whilst we have the power to save millions from disease and hunger we still have:

* 640 million children without adequate shelter
* 500 million children without access to sanitation
* 400 million children without access to safe water
* 270 million children without access to health care services
* 140 million children without access to school
* 90 million children severely food-deprived

without the advances in technology that allowed the first agricultural societies, world population would have stayed at a stable 100-200 million, with a life expectancy of 30-40.

thus the countless millions and millions born into lives of deprivation since about 3000 bce, would never have been born at all.

If you are going to take a measure of human suffering as the yardstick, then there simply wouldn't be as many humans to do the suffering, without our scientific advances.

So, baldly, no science - less suffering. Unquestionably.

it wasn't a question about suffering though, was it. If you measure suffering you're right, if you measure years lived and compare that to without science it looks rather different.

Would you rather live with the risk of poverity, or never live at all?

Whenever I put on my glasses I thank God for medical science.
When I take the medication I need ,I do the same.
Whenever I am enjoying life as I am, I think that if I didn't live in this day and age I would have been dead.
So science has furthered me more than an inch.
hazel

Originally posted by Cyclone
it wasn't a question about suffering though, was it. If you measure suffering you're right, if you measure years lived and compare that to without science it looks rather different.

Would you rather live with the risk of poverity, or never live at all?

I have no personal issue with the debate really; as anyone who has read my posts on here will know, I am a great believer in scientific method, and a devout skeptic.

But I think it is a mistake to eulogise it. That first jump from nomad to valley dwelling agrarian probably sealed the fate of the human race. Population is still expanding at about 80,000,000 people a year as we race to save the dying with our technological achievements.

Being dependent on a synthetic drug to stop me lapsing into an irreversible coma gives me a keen appreciation of the value of scientific method, but equally the reason I have to take it is probably due to another scientific marvel, Nuclear Power.

Although I'm guilty of it myself, it's wrong to make causative connections between the emergence of human technology and all our ills/achievements.

But, if I was God, and I could stop humans from becoming 'conscious', I'd be sorely tempted.

As someone who suffers from fairly severe eczema, I live with the irony that, although I'm reliant on scientific (medical) advances to deal with the symptoms, it is probably modern living that causes it in the first place (I think my eczema is caused by allergens in the home - living in a cave might actually do me good, but then, I'd miss posting on this forum!).

I don't buy this idea that letting more people die off due to disease or beacuse they aren't "fit to survive" is in humanity's best interest - are there people out there who can seriously say that they wished they'd never lived at all?

I do agree however that this country has got a lot of "quality of life" factors wrong in many respects, but that is down to social issues, rather than scientific ones.

And how far would everybody go with the technology purge anyway? Even a sharpened pointy stick, or a stylish bearskin loincloth is a form of technology. If we go the whole hog, we'll all be left eating ants off trees and stealing squirrel carcasses for sunday lunch.

Mmm... squirrels.