Slashdot Mirror
A Conversation with Alan Lightman
An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience has an interview with Physicist, novelist, and science writer, Alan Lightman with regards to the future of science and what the next "big" discoveries might be. From the article: "Generally attack against science is part of a greater attack against intellectualism in general. I think right now we're in an anti-intellectual period in the United States, but I think the pendulum will swing back in the other direction again."
Frink: Well, you should think of stuff that people need, but which do not exist yet.
Homer: You mean like an electric-blanket-mobile?
Frink: Well, I suppose that's possible...or you could think of stuff that exists and find a new use for it, like...
Homer: Hamburger earmuffs.
Frink: Well, that may...
Homer: So long sucker!
Frink: What?! Okay, calm down, Frinky. These babies will be in the stores while he's still grappling with the pickle matrix!
Developers: We can use your help.
words that he's said like this response:
"I think science has always been under assault to some extent. I think there are fashions in cycles in which science is attacked for a period of time and is embraced for a period of time and it's attacked again. Generally attack against science is part of a greater attack against intellectualism in general. I think right now we're in an anti-intellectual period in the United States, but I think the pendulum will swing back in the other direction again. I agree with you that we're not seeing anything now that hasn't happened in earlier centuries."
will come back to haunt him.
Everyone knows that any so-called science that attempts to invalidate The Great Spaghetti Monster is heresy and will be rewritten - or rather, redrawn with crayons - in the classrooms of our nation.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I think right now we're in an anti-intellectual period in the United States, but I think the pendulum will swing back in the other direction again
Primarily because it would be anti-intellectual to expect any other sort of response from a pendulum?
I myself believe it is the Greek goddess of swinging things, Pendulus (she also has two other uhm... circles of influence) that maintains the expected reciprocation, but to each his or her own....
You know things are bad when you come across a parody and you stop for second and check to be sure they are not really serious.
How's his son David doing? Last time I heard anything about him it was 1983....
Approaching Normal
It is the job of the intellectual to sit around and think up stuff. It is the job of the scientists to tell the intellectuals that they are either full of shit or right on. It is the job of the revolutionary to change the world. If you consider yourself one of they above but do the job of one of the others you are doing the rest of us a disservice. Scientists should never be intellectuals and logic and intellect are not comparable.
My job as a gadfly is to tell everyone they are full of shit. Which makes me idealy suited to post on slashdot.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
I'd write a reasoned response disagreeing, but I just don't care.