Christoph Reuss wrote:
>
> Ray E. Harrell wrote:
> [big snip]
> > All of this being said, I am not an anti-European or an anti-Scientist.
> [big snip]
>
> While it is true that many scientists are "in for the money" and many
> technicians wear blinkers, we should keep in mind that not all scientists/
> technicians are like that, and science is not "inherently bad".
> I like the quote from Albert Einstein in his prologue to a book by Max
> Planck, "Where Is Science Going", New York, 1932 (but still very uptodate):
>
> "Many kinds of men devote themselves to Science, and not all for the sake
> of Science herself. There are some who come into her temple because it
> offers them the opportunity to display their particular talents. To this
> class of men science is a kind of sport in the practice of which they
> exult, just as an athlete exults in the exercise of his muscular prowess.
> There is another class of men who come into the temple to make an offering
> of their brain pulp in the hope of securing a profitable return. These men
> are scientists only by the chance of some circumstance which offered itself
> when making a choice of career. If the attending circumstances had been
> different they might have become politicians or captains of business.
> Should an angel of God descend and drive from the Temple of Science all
> those who belong to the categories I have mentioned, I fear the temple
> would be nearly emptied. But a few worshipers would still remain -- some
> from former times and some from ours. To these latter belongs our Planck.
[snip]
> (computer scientist who likes to "think beyond"..)
Good for you! Unlike Odysseus, you probably do not need to
move a muscle to find "people who have never heard of the sea"
among whom to plant an oar!
Einstein is a bit optimistic: The father of modern
science was apparently a pompous -ss and a coward to boot.
Galileo. Would we have science without Galileo?
Probably. But he did have a rather big and
still continuing impact.
But now let us remember more scientists of genuine (even if
partial / flawed) nobility -- and let us not forget
about engineers who have a broader vision, while
we're at it:
Ludwig Boltzmann
Kurt Godel
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Tycho Brahe
Joseph Weizenbaum [computer scientist]
Rachel Carson
Roger Boisjoly [Morton Thiokol / Challenger engineer]
William LeMessurier [Citicorp bldg, NYC]
(you probably can name more than I can...)
Edmund Husserl
But a few swallows do not a summer make.
Of course there are many unsung "minor"
contributors (I met one last week). But
"all in all", we live in a world of
"instrumental rationality" rather than
self-accountable reason[ableness], and,
given that situation, it simply is not
good enough to *be* reasonable: One
must also evangelize it! Scientists simply
must tell the world that the living discourse
in which the social praxis of science
lives and moves and has its being is
far more important than the current
*results* of that process -- and if anyone
responds to this that the results of
science are *VERY* important (e.g.,
antibiotics), I have no argument, so
long as they raise the *process* up
atop the peak of the very highest of those
great accomplishments.
Seeing is the condition of
all things seen, and it itself
is not any thing seen or even
all of them together.
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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