Should science have limits?

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Zorak

Zorak

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Maybe one day we will need to.
As for now, we're still very much in the black. We don't know why we are here or how, so might as well plug away with all we got.
 
sharpies

sharpies

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That involves a lot more than just that simple question. I firmly believe that without science we would not be where we are today & I'm not talking about the destructive stuff but rather the mundane - starting a fire, cracking rocks to make sharp edges so you can skin animals for clothing, farming, building shelters etc. All of these may not seem like science but at some stage someone researched each of these to find the right materials, experimentation - the very basis of science.

Now move forward to today, Stem Cell Research, is a big thing with a lot of people opposed to it but if it could give sight back to the blind or a repair a broken spine. My heart & lungs don't work & I guess I'm hoping that stem cell research can get there before I die. A lot of people want to stop this sort of research, as they do with The Great Hadron Collider, Cloning, Nuclear Power.

I don't have an answer but one thing is clear if we had prevented someone from designing & building a spear to hunt we may not be here today. The fact that the spear was also used in war, to kill enemies is a little scary but how can we decide which inventions go on to become killing machines.

Think about this, a Dictator could use Penicillin to kill all those people that are allergic to it, if he/she so desired - does this make Penicillin a bad thing?
 
alice in chains

alice in chains

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Sharpies, great last question. No, an object of science is never evil. It's definitely the mind of it's users that matters. I suppose there is no way to tell what the outcome will be...If science should or should not do something, a choice has to be made on which decision will cause the lesser amount of suffering and the greater amount of benefit. It's interesting, though, humans perception of evil and suffering may not be the case even for human beings at all. After all, aren't people medicated for minor depression when the illness is well within their own personal power to defeat it? That may sound a lil' off topic...I'm hoping it's not, though.
 
Leananshee

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Science does a good job of limiting itself. It was the scientific community that insisted that powered flight was impossible, that the sound barrier could not be breached, that anesthesia would never work, and more recently that the human brain could not rewire itself, let alone by directed therapy. That which does not meet certain criteria for scientific "truth" does not get funding, and those who "think outside the box" are only heralded years, decades or centuries later. You don't have to be religious to be a fundamentalist, you simply have to deny the possibility that everything you think is true is a load of shit.

tim :bounce
 
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