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12 Sep 09
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12 Nov 08
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01 Oct 08
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So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago -- a mind which has long ago been replaced.
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We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
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we find that even great forces and abilities do not seem to carry with them clear instructions on how to use them. As an example, the great accumulation of understanding as to how the physical world behaves only convinces one that this behavior seems to have a kind of meaninglessness
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What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say to dispel the mystery of existence?
If we take everything into account -- not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn't know -- then I think we must frankly admit that we do not know.
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But, in admitting this, we have probably found the open channel.
This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in -- a trial-and-error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.
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Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on
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to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations
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13 Jul 08
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10 Jul 08
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09 Jul 08
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08 Jul 08
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arpie108Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsur -
When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
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When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.
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07 Jul 08
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Kenneth SievFROM time to time people suggest to me that scientists ought to give more consideration to social problems -- especially that they should be more responsible in considering the impact of science on society.
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Isaac PigottThe first way in which science is of value is familiar to everyone. It is that scientific knowledge enables us to do all kinds of things and to make all kinds of things. Of course if we make good things, it is not only to the credit of science; it is also
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