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cognitivemagic -> RE: "Science" Confers No Survival Advantages. (4/12/2008 5:04:58 PM)
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Science can't do anything besides tell us about how the world is. Technology, on the other hand, can do quite a bit. Now, our technology can't stop the entropy of the sun, or even extend the sun's life. But in general, with a far-enough advanced technology, then yes, technology can probably stop the entropy of the sun. Not by violating the laws of physics, but by adding more fuel to the sun. With advanced enough technology, it's probably possible to throw suns, or planets, into the sun. Throwing Jupiter into the sun would certainly extend its life a little bit. It might destroy the earth in the process, but it can certainly be done, at least conceptually.
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. The second law states that the available energy we have is headed toward maximal entropic stasis, where energy is wholly unusable.
So, "No Virginia, science will not save mankind."
Again, we return to that blind optimism that I stated earlier in my post.
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So it appears that you have no interest in discussing you only want to push your views on the rest of us.
Pots still call kettles "black". Ok.
I started this post; so yeah, I am "pushing" my views. And so are you. So what's the problem?
If you're against "pushing viewpoints", then don't read them or post threads or post responses.
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Yea, but what % of the population got killed in each? The world population has grown exponentially since the black plague. Black plague was estimated to have killed 30-60% of the european population at the time. I bet WW1 didnt approach that, though I dont know what the numbers are.
Everlearning gave us these estimates:
quote:
world war I 119,000,000 estimated dead
world war II 48,231,700 estimated dead
Korean war 3,500,000 estimated dead
Vietnam war 2,495,00 estimated dead
Gulf war 100,000 estimated dead
Now lets look at what science has done for us
The flu of 1918 killed up to 100 million people, then in the late 1900's probably around 1 million people died of the flu mostly becaue of vaccines (scientific advances).
In the past century the number or TB infections/deaths has decreased by more than tenfold
Then there is the black plaque 35 million dead in Europe 60 million dead in asia. Had any millions of people dying of plague lately (or anything else for that matter)?
The math and the logic are not difficult to figure out here. In nearly 100 years, 95 million people died from the Bubonic plague in Asia and Europe.
In four years (1914-1918), 119 million died by human warfare.
Therefore, with our helpful friends at the science and technology department, humans were able to best the death toll of the Black Plague in 1/20th the amount of time....with nearly 25 million more deaths to boot!!
Am I the only person in history that has taken issue with science: no.
Think: Jonathan Swift and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
In fact, "Gulliver's Travels" is a social commentary written contra science/scientists.
And Wittgenstein is every bit as much a "genius" as any of those hallowed men of science, including Einstein and Hawking.
The National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institute are now the sacred priesthood that dictates dogma and metaphysics ex cathedra. They have their own seat of "bishops" and their own Teaching Magisterium. Their pronouncements are binding, and any detractors are demonized and ex communicated from the communion of naturalist "saints". They have their own Canon law and their own "fathers".
In other words, these institutions are the resurrected Medieval Church; or rather, they exemplify the kind of "intolerance, bigotry and superstition" that their historians and apologists had claimed was, supposedly, at the center of Medieval learning.
And so consider these words of the rock band, the Clash, from "London's Burning":
"Black or White, turn it on, face the new religion
Everybody's sitting round watching television"
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