Media is pervasive and we can't really help but absorb it. It affects everyone's thinking. The fact that ideas from media is pervasive helps to propagate those ideas. People are more willing to bring it up during conversation, etc.
Why do we have to distinquish between models and ideas that stems from our imagination everyday.
OK, pure scientific research is pure scientific research. However, science fiction helps to dream up of applications scientific discoveries, etc. It's very easy to get sucked in into all the nitty gritty details. Sometimes you just need people to step back and take meta looks at what is there and what all the possibilities are.
As a people, we are all contributing to the development of science. Most people are either dreamers or scientists...maybe that's why the "Models and Metaphors" issue has been raised.
Now we have more ways to detect the existence (or the prior existence...because light, x-rays, etc. that emanate from FAR AWAY objects take awhile before they reach us) of objects, maybe this will lead to a more conclusive mapping of the Universe as it existed, and how it is changing. Energy can not be created or destroyed so the more components that we have, the more we can check them against each other.
People are trying to come up with synthetic drugs that help humans combat viruses, etc. I wonder if this is going to effect the human race in the long run. Even though viruses mutate themselves so that the next time we encounter them, we are at their mercy, one thing that does happen is that our body's immune system also steps "foward" everytime we catch the flu and get better from it...i.e. after we fight it, our bodies contain antibodies to for the virus we just staved off. Is this an important part of the evolutionary process? Will synthetic drugs eventually make humans weaker and more drug dependent???
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Media is pervasive and we can't really help but absorb it. It affects everyone's thinking. The fact that ideas from media is pervasive helps to propagate those ideas. People are more willing to bring it up during conversation, etc. Why do we have to distinquish between models and ideas that stems from our imagination everyday. OK, pure scientific research is pure scientific research. However, science fiction helps to dream up of applications scientific discoveries, etc. It's very easy to get sucked in into all the nitty gritty details. Sometimes you just need people to step back and take meta looks at what is there and what all the possibilities are. As a people, we are all contributing to the development of science. Most people are either dreamers or scientists...maybe that's why the "Models and Metaphors" issue has been raised.
Now we have more ways to detect the existence (or the prior existence...because light, x-rays, etc. that emanate from FAR AWAY objects take awhile before they reach us) of objects, maybe this will lead to a more conclusive mapping of the Universe as it existed, and how it is changing. Energy can not be created or destroyed so the more components that we have, the more we can check them against each other.
People are trying to come up with synthetic drugs that help humans combat viruses, etc. I wonder if this is going to effect the human race in the long run. Even though viruses mutate themselves so that the next time we encounter them, we are at their mercy, one thing that does happen is that our body's immune system also steps "foward" everytime we catch the flu and get better from it...i.e. after we fight it, our bodies contain antibodies to for the virus we just staved off. Is this an important part of the evolutionary process? Will synthetic drugs eventually make humans weaker and more drug dependent???