Ed,
At 11:18 12/09/2010 -0400, you wrote:
The issue you are raising is partly a moral one, Keith. We currently
spend a lot of wealth on guns and bombs and the kinds of military
equipment that delivers them. We send some of the brightest people we
have off to do battle with and obliterate other very bright people. What
if we shifted all of that money, brains and energy into research in
genetics and particle physics? Even then we might not find the Higgs
boson or resolve the ultimate problem of how we and our universe came to
be, but we'd probably get a lot closer to real answers.
Will we ever be able to make that kind of shift? I doubt it.
I doubt it also -- at least under the present set-up. What I fear -- and
this is a very serious possibility in my view -- is that the present social
divide in advanced countries will widen further and that only a meta-class
(perhaps the top 20% of the population) will actually survive over a coming
period of perhaps two centuries of increasing general breakdown. All
advanced country populations are declining or are at the point of decline
and only a meta-class might have the motivation and resources to pay for
pronatal procedures (in vitro gestation, for example) that will enable them
to keep up their numbers. They might also go in for breeding in a serious
way. This would not be so much along the "designer babies" route -- it is
now realized that our genes are much too complex for that -- but by a
systematic extension of what is beginning to occur now -- the elimination
of harmful gene variations.
What with reaching peak supplies of both fossil fuels and freshwater for
agriculture, I cannot see how countries can save themselves en masse (never
mind pay for particle accelerators!).
Keith
(P.S. I'm sounding more pessimistic than you often say you are!)
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, ,EDUCATION
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 4:42 AM
Subject: [Futurework] There's scientific hope yet
Now that we are into an era of austerity -- at least in Europe and at
least for a number of years -- what is the future for CERN (European
Organization for Nuclear Research)? This huge circular particle
accelerator running for miles under the boundary between France and
Switzerland is now due to be moth-balled from 2012 onwards because of its
immense running costs. This is a body-blow to several thousand engineers
and scientists, including many of the best young brains of Europe. From
2013 onwards, if we are realistic, the likelihood is that it will be many
years -- if ever again -- before European governments will be in a
position to support it.
We must also bear in mind another factor which is never talked about.
This is that the cost of particle physics has never appeared in political
manifestos at election times. It has been surreptitiously slid into more
general governmental spending on science education and research. The
proverbial man-in-the-street is vaguely aware that his consumer goods are
due to science, but he would never willingly vote for the immense sums of
money required for further accelerators if they ever began to loom large
in governmental budgets.
The man-in-the-street is potentially as curious as the most dedicated
scientist but his education is so blunted in childhood that he cannot
begin to assess the importance and excitement of particle physics in the
whole scheme of things. Indeed, it is a marvel that the CERN accelerator
has been funded at all, there being hardly a politician or senior
bureaucrat in the whole of Europe who understands anything of basic
science (Angela Merkel of Germany being a notable exception).
But even if the CERN accelerator could have continued, the Higgs boson
discovered, and antimatter atoms created, then one thing is for
certain. Many more questions will have been raised, and the scientists
concerned would have wanted to build an even more powerful accelerator.
This, at the very least, would probably cost several times more than the
present one -- probably more than Europe could afford. It is possible
that one more might be built. If a fantastic scientific breakthrough
occurs during 2011, then perhaps America and China could join the project
and help to build the next accelerator which might have to be the size of
Europe, or the American Mid-West or the Gobi desert.
Subsequently, if all the deep matters of physics are not answered, what
then? An accelerator that runs round the whole Equator? This is a classic
Malthusian problem. Sooner or later, the whole world would not be large
enough, nor governments rich enough, to build the next one. This would
not only be a body-blow to particle physicists, it could be devastating
to scientific enquiry itself.
But never say never. Perhaps all the particles that physicists have
discovered so far, and will discover in the future, are merely
terminological artefacts of our present scientific theories, the
principal one being the Big Bang. Perhaps the universe wasn't created
this way. Perhaps there aren't really such things as sub-atomic particles
but something else that adopts particular appearances according to the
experiments that are applied. Perhaps a different scientific view of
things, different concepts and different theories and experiments will
reveal another way of explaining the overwhelming wonders of the universe.
Perhaps classical experiments in the future -- whatever the current
theory might be -- will have to be held in outer space. If so, then
despite delays, we do have hope for science in the future because the
best young minds in science are not confined to physics alone but also to
evolutionary biology. And we will need this subject if we are ever to go
on prolonged flights or carry out large experiments in outer space. We
are probably going to have to deep-freeze or otherwise maintain human DNA
in good condition for long periods of time. To do this we are going to
have to understand and develop genetics a lot further yet.
And this is already the main growth area of science even though it has
only really come of age since the Human Genome Project in 2003 which blew
several previous ideas of biology shy-high. Biologists are also pursuing
answers to deep questions. "How did Life start?" is the most profound
one. This may turn out to be involving complex issues of a quantum sort
that are quite as deep as those presently pondered by particle
physicists. Although this question only intrigues a minority of the
population there are also some wider ones. "How can we breed better
children?" is something every mother is interested in. "How can we
conquer disease?" is a question that everybody is interested in.
And, of course, the taxpayer will support this avenue of enquiry. So far,
both the professional careerists and the more fanatical believers of
organized religions kick up a lot of trouble from time to time. But the
motivations of potential recipients of genetic manipulation (particularly
mothers of IVF children so far) as well as the scientific curiosity of
professional biologists has been too strong. Politicians and bureaucrats
already know this, of course, and genetics is now quietly slipping
through the legal cracks and developing quite as fast as is possible,
limited only by the quantity and quality of young minds wanting to enter
the subject. Even if some governments were to outlaw or delay particular
lines of enquiry for electoral reasons -- as President George Bush did
concerning stem cells some years ago -- then other governments will allow
it to continue, or even give it much more substantial backing as
Singapore and China are already doing.
Even if science is blocked along the present particle physics avenue then
we have every hope that it will continue along others. And -- who knows?
-- even the "soft" science of biology might one day help to answer the
questions that particle physicists are now asking but can't yet answer.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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