Is some scientific knowledge not worth having?

[BPSCG]

Is some knowledge worthless?

Undoubtedly, but how do we know until we have it?

1. Knowledge of how to cause an uncontrolled photonic (as opposed to atomic) reaction. Imagine the ramifications of causing light to explode in a chain reaction.
2. Knowledge of how to make the known universe collapse instantaneously into a singularity.

Fortunately, we don't have that knowledge.

I hope nobody on some far-away galaxy does.

 

[Morrigan]

So, if scientific knowledge bothers the warm fuzzy feelings of the politically correct majority, it's not worth having?

What a load of bollocks.

 

[Dancing David]

So, if scientific knowledge bothers the warm fuzzy feelings of the politically correct majority, it's not worth having?

What a load of bollocks.

The issue is, is it scientific or just vauge stuff that is unrelated , the article does not define the word 'intelligence' or how it is measured, if you look at the material of John Lahn, it is cased upon brain size, brain size vs structural complexity would be a good study.

But without knowing what it was lahn actualy studied that he has decided to not study, more can not be said.

And evolution since the radiation of modern homo sapiens, probably more related to disease resistance than intelligence.

The world may never know, until we can violate all the laws of physics and actualy study archaic homo sap, and compare them to modern homo sap, especialy with an adequate diet.

 

[Tony]

No, never.

 

[T'ai Chi]

.., it's at least possible in theory that a nuclear bomb could be used to divert an astroid in a collision course. Should that ever actually occur I suspect it save thousands of times the number of people who've been killed by nuclear weapons.

Ever consider a career in politics, or sales?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Knowledge that could only lead to the destruction of the universe? Not so! Even if your knowledge is "uncontrolled explosive space harmonic reaction" which will cause all of space and time to explode violently (the universe asplode), it is good to have knowledge of it if only so you know what to look for to prevent anyone ELSE from doing it (Omega Directive).

 

[Mojo]

Any science that is used specifically to kill people is probably not wise to have. Abombs come to mind.

You're confusing science with technology.

 

[BPSCG]

Knowledge that could only lead to the destruction of the universe? Not so! Even if your knowledge is "uncontrolled explosive space harmonic reaction" which will cause all of space and time to explode violently (the universe asplode), it is good to have knowledge of it if only so you know what to look for to prevent anyone ELSE from doing it (Omega Directive).

Uh huh. What are you working on that you want to talk with the rest of us about...?

Another achievement of the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax is that they were the first race who ever managed to shock a computer.

It was a gigantic spaceborne computer called Hactar, which to this day is remembered as one of the most powerful ever built. It was the first to be built like a natural brain, in that every cellular particle of it carried the pattern of the whole within it, which enabled it to think more flexibly and imaginatively, and also, it seemed, to be shocked. ​

The Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax were engaged in one of their regular wars with the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, and were not enjoying it as much as usual because it involved an awful lot of trekking through the Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda, and across the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga, neither of which terrains they felt at home in. ​

So when the Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak joined in the fray and forced them to fight another front in the Gamma Caves of Carfrax and the Ice Storms of Varlengooten, they decided that enough was enough, and they ordered Hactar to design for them an Ultimate Weapon.

"What do you mean," asked Hactar, "by Ultimate?" ​

To which the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax said, "Read a bloody dictionary," and plunged back into the fray. ​

So Hactar designed an Ultimate Weapon.

It was a very, very small bomb which was simply a junction box in hyperspace that would, when activated, connect the heart of every major sun with the heart of every other major sun simultaneously and thus turn the entire Universe in to one gigantic hyperspatial supernova. ​

When the Silastic Armorfiends tried to use it to blow up a Strangulous Stilettan munitions dump in one of the Gamma Caves, they were extremely irritated that it didn't work, and said so.

Hactar had been shocked by the whole idea. He tried to explain that he had been thinking about this Ultimate Weapon business, and had worked out that there was no conceivable consequence of not setting the bomb off that was worse than the known consequence of setting it off, and he had therefore taken the liberty of introducing a small flaw into the design of the bomb, and he hoped that everyone involved would, on sober reflection, feel that ... ​

The Silastic Armorfiends disagreed and pulverized the computer. ​

​

From one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books...​

 

[AWPrime]

Any science that is used specifically to kill people is probably not wise to have.

Why?

 

[Beerina]

When I was a freshie at umich lo these many years ago, one Dungeons and Dragons buddie, of the type taking Calculus for Gods (high honors, as opposed to Calculus for Demigods, honors, or Calculus for mortals) was convinced his intelligence was inherited mostly, i.e. nature over nurture.

I noted it was interesting that intelligent people seem to want to believe their intelligence is congenital rather than the very praiseworthy result of their own assbusting hard work. It's a tendency I've noted in myself from time to time. As if you're "superior-er" if it's genetic, rather than merely the result of good parenting, teachers, and your own hard work.

In the general cultural push to one-ups yourself and your image for the purpose of ultimately finding a mate, perhaps that does look better, wrongly or not.

 

[Beady]

"What Dr. Lahn told his audience was that genetic changes over the past several thousand years might be linked to brain size and intelligence. He flashed maps that showed the changes had taken hold and spread widely in Europe, Asia and the Americas, but weren’t common in sub-Saharan Africa.”

This may or may not be pertinent.

Most of what I do at work is adjudicate employment authorization applications for foreign students following their graduation from American colleges and universities. I normally see 80 - 100 of these per day. I have no hard numbers at hand, merely impressions and expectations formed over the last three or four years; this means that what follows are gross generalizations.

That said, I would be extremely surprised to see a sub-Saharan African who had majored in, say, theater. They ("They") generally graduate in the more-practical disciplines, such as computers, engineering or business. Europeans are far more apt to get an arts degree, while the greatest number of beautician graduates seems to be from Japan. India seems equally-divided between commerce and computers, with their commerce and business students staying at home to study, while a seemingly large percentage of their computer students come here (their business graduates also come to the States to get advanced computer degrees). China leans heavily on engineering, while Taiwan is more "European."

Take from that what you will.

 

[Meadmaker]

I noted it was interesting that intelligent people seem to want to believe their intelligence is congenital rather than the very praiseworthy result of their own assbusting hard work. It's a tendency I've noted in myself from time to time. As if you're "superior-er" if it's genetic, rather than merely the result of good parenting, teachers, and your own hard work.

I've got some pretty high test scores, but no one has ever said I was an especially hard worker.

What I do think is as much nurture as nature is your respect and desire for knowledge, and that can relate to achievement. I think you can teach yourself or your children to make a conscious decision to read "War and Peace" instead of watching "Ren and Stimpy". It's just that if you don't have the nature in your brain to wade through great literature, it's going to take an awful lot of hard work, and you aren't going to do as well as the smart kid who was born that way, in my humble opinion.

(FWIW, I haven't read War and Peace, and I have watched Ren and Stimpy. Not to be too much of an intellectual snob. I don't have anything against mindless entertainment. The only Russian literature I've actually read is "Crime and Punishment".)

 

[Morrigan]

The issue is, is it scientific or just vauge stuff that is unrelated , the article does not define the word 'intelligence' or how it is measured, if you look at the material of John Lahn, it is cased upon brain size, brain size vs structural complexity would be a good study.

That is besides the point of the OP. I was not commenting on the article, but on the idea (which the OP rightfully criticizes) that some knowledge is "not worth having" because it's potentially "dangerous".

 

[Beady]

I was not commenting on the article, but on the idea (which the OP rightfully criticizes) that some knowledge is "not worth having" because it's potentially "dangerous".

If you decide to ignore a body of knowledge (boy, that sounds weird) because it's too dangerous, you can bet that someone else won't. And, as the saying goes, "Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't."

 

[Beerina]

That is besides the point of the OP. I was not commenting on the article, but on the idea (which the OP rightfully criticizes) that some knowledge is "not worth having" because it's potentially "dangerous".

Don't worry about it. The Gattaca period of humanity will be very brief on a historical timeline, to be quickly replaced via designer babies and post-conceptual (including post-birth) genetic upgrades.

In other words, everybody born will be given these genes if they don't already have them, and philosophers will debate whether not giving these "upgrades" is, in fact, actually immoral.

People will all be running around with gorgeous faces, magnificent bodies that stay muscular and don't gain weight, with minds like a steel trap, eidetic, and bristling with confidence and more "people skills" than the average US president.

 

[LW]

I mean, sure, Finland is a nice place to live now, but as little as a hundred years ago, it was a barren, sparsely populated wasteland.

Just a note: you might want to use some other country as your example.

 

[drkitten]

Just a note: you might want to use some other country as your example.

I think Finland is a pretty good example. It's hard to find a better example of harsh climate and recurrant climatically induced food shortages than 19th century Finland, and the only reason that diseases weren't rampant is because there weren't enough people living there for anything related to humans to qualify as rampant. (The population of Finland has increased something like twentyfold over the past hundred or so years, largely because the emerging technological infrastructure has finally made it possible to do something about the climate.)

 

[Godmode]

All scientific results are important, even if we don't like what they tell us. Maybe ecspecially if we don't like what they tell us.
You just can't know how findings from one thing can help lead to important discoveries in another.

 

[LW]

I think Finland is a pretty good example. It's hard to find a better example of harsh climate and recurrant climatically induced food shortages than 19th century Finland,

I'm not certain how you define "food shortage" so I can't really answer this. However, in the 19th century Finland there was exactly one great countrywide famine (1867-8) that was caused by two consequent extermely bad years. (That famine was made even worse by its timing: the Czar forbade all private alcohol distillation in 1866 so a lot of farmers made booze from their extra crops while they still could).

It is true that there were on average two bad years in a decade and mortality rose on the bad years but actual deaths by starvation were rare. I just made a quick search on online church record database for my mother's home area (Alahärmä). I don't have time to make good research, but I could find only about 250 deaths attributed to starvation among total of 11600 burials (49 of them during the great famine) between 1800-93. (The problem for getting an exact figure is that the record keepers didn't use the terms consistently and I very likely missed some alternative term for "starvation").

(The population of Finland has increased something like twentyfold over the past hundred or so years, largely because the emerging technological infrastructure has finally made it possible to do something about the climate.)

I have to admit that 2 is something like 20 but outside of astronomy an error of one order of magnitude is usually considered to be rather large.

The first surviving census records from late 16th century put the number of inhabitants in Finland to somewhere along 300 000 (the records are not complete so exact figure is not known). Finland's current population is 5.2 million, so we have to go back before recorded history to get the 20-fold population increase. Here's a link to a table of Finnish population growth between 1750-1990 (it is at the bottom of the page).

And your comment about "wasteland" is incorrect also in the sense that the amount of cultivated land has been roughly the same since 1850s at the latest. (I have stats somewhere but since this is the Midsummer Weekend I'm not going to dig them up now, I'm leaving for barbacue in a couple of minutes).

The main reason why I injected the note was that most of the Finnish authors who visited Russia about 100 years ago and wrote about their experiences maintain that the standard of living in Finland was much higher than, say, in Urals.

 

[drkitten]

The first surviving census records from late 16th century put the number of inhabitants in Finland to somewhere along 300 000 (the records are not complete so exact figure is not known). Finland's current population is 5.2 million, so we have to go back before recorded history to get the 20-fold population increase. Here's a link to a table of Finnish population growth between 1750-1990 (it is at the bottom of the page).

Apparently our sources differ; mine put the 1900-era population of Finland at approximately 4-500,000. I'm perfectly happy revising my opinion in light of your presumably more accurate sources. (Hmm. I wonder if my source was somehow only counting "Finns" and ignoring "Swedes" and/or "Russians" or something. Or it may simply have been wrong.)

In any case I of course withdraw the comparision and apologize.

Enjoy your weekend.