Science/Technology

Religion and Science

Primordial religions have always been about avoiding the calamities of climate: drought, fire, disease, war… But religion has also always been more that an individual alleviation of insecurity and guilt. It has been a stabilizing force of society’s dominance hierarchies.

An army of networked kiosks is invading New York City. Hundreds of them. They’re large vertical slabs, practically ten feet tall and chock full of sensors. Reminiscent of the mysterious black monoliths from Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001. These kiosks are replacing the city’s aging public telephone booths and after this initial wave of monoliths hits Gotham there will be thousands more installed throughout the city.

Food, like shelter and health care, is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a fundamental right of all people, irrespective of circumstances or income. And yet one in nine of the global population does not have enough to eat – despite the fact that there is enough food to feed everyone.

Last year, Doctor Stephen Hawking and other esteemed scientists signed a petition stipulating that Artificial Intelligence was the greatest threat to the future of the human species. The argument is that A.I. would evolve to such technological complexity that it would surpass the human species in every domain and discipline, and, in short, render the human species obsolete. A.I. would become an autonomous free thinking entity and would eventually cast off the shackles of humanity and enter a post-human era, one where A.I.

There is something so fundamentally wrong about equating the joy and genius of scientific discovery with profit and markets. Initial discoveries in quantum physics had nothing to do with the idea of pursuing a remorseless “bottom line” or some specious market concept.  The results of such discoveries were, however, gargantuan. Eventually, applications arise, with various economic benefits. Patience, however, is a golden virtue in that regard.

I can’t take a budget that eliminates marketing, outreach and in-person assistors seriously.
— Teresa Mosqueda, member of the Washington State Health Benefit Exchange board.
You can’t afford to get sick, and you can’t depend on the present health care system to keep you well. It’s up to you to protect and maintain your body’s innate capacity for health and healing by making the right choices in how you live.
— Dr. Andrew Weil, an American physician, author, spokesperson, and sort of guru for holistic health and integrative medicine.

The headline reads, “The Rapid Rise of a Research Nation:  China’s economic boom is mirrored by its similarly meteoric rise in high quality science.”  This was not a headline in People’s Daily or China Daily but in the most prestigious of Western scientific publications, Nature.

Has the British political establishment had an atrophying episode on the science front? Suggestions that this might be the case came last week when there were suggestions that a gag of Britain’s scientists might be in the works. The Cabinet Office had busied itself with proposals in February that, if implemented, would prevent organisations from using tax-payer funds to lobby parliamentarians.

Now that Super Tuesday is over, it looks like Donald Trump is the likely Republican presidential nominee. Not only is this bad news to women and the majority of the earth’s population against whom Trump’s sexist and racist politics would harm should be be president, but the earth might be Trump’s biggest casualty.