I wrote:
. . . educated people thought could not be answered in principle,
such as cellular reproduction, and the fact that a single cell (a
fertilized egg) has enough information to form an entire body.
Note that before 1952, some people thought that only a fertilized egg
had the full complement of information needed to form a body. Others,
including some educated biologists, thought it impossible even in
principle for anything so small to contain this much information, so
they said the event must be a miracle that can never be explained. It
is now, of course, fully explained, and likely to be one of the
biggest industries and sources of wealth in the future. This
illustrates that what happens in a single test tube or x-ray machine
can change the fate of nations a generation later, and soon the fate
of the entire solar system. Politicians and industrial magnates
sometimes imagine themselves to be "masters of the universe" who
decide the future, but they have no power compared to those who
discover and invent new things. As Francis Bacon put it:
"For the end of our science is not to discover arguments, but arts,
nor what is agreeable to certain principles, but the principles
themselves, nor probable reasons, but designations and indications of
effects. . . .
Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the
cause frustrates the effect. For nature is only subdued by
submission, and that which in contemplative philosophy corresponds
with the cause, in practical science becomes the rule.
It would be madness, and inconsistency, to suppose that things which
have never yet been performed, can be performed without employing
some hitherto untried means. . . ."
Bacon also described Sci Am. editor J. Hogan and the other
end-of-history fruitcakes:
". . . by far the greatest obstacle to the advancement of the
sciences, and the undertaking of any new attempt or department, is to
be found in men's despair and the idea of impossibility; for men of a
prudent and exact turn of thought are altogether diffident in matters
of this nature, considering the obscurity of nature, the shortness of
life, the deception of the senses, and weakness of the judgment. They
think, therefore, that in the revolutions of ages and of the world
there are certain floods and ebbs of the sciences, and that they grow
and flourish at one time, and wither and fall off at another, that
when they have attained a certain degree and condition they can
proceed no further."
And finally, on the role of discoverers:
". . . the introduction of great inventions appears one of the most
distinguished of human actions, and the ancients so considered it;
for they assigned divine honors to the authors of inventions, but
only heroic honors to those who displayed civil merit (such as the
founders of cities and empires, legislators, the deliverers of their
country from lasting misfortunes, the quellers of tyrants, and the
like). And if anyone rightly compare them, he will find the judgment
of antiquity to be correct; for the benefits derived from inventions
may extend to mankind in general, but civil benefits to particular
spots alone; the latter, moreover, last but for a time, the former
forever. Civil reformation seldom is carried on without violence and
confusion, whilst inventions are a blessing and a benefit without
injuring or afflicting any."
That last statement is, alas, no longer true, what with people
inventing thermonuclear bombs and the like. Some things have changed
since 1620, but not as many as you might think. Some people have
learned some of the lessons Bacon taught, while others such as Horgan
have learned nothing. That is the fundamental reason he and others
like him do not believe cold fusion is real. When you strip away the
outward manifestations of modernity, and get down to their core
beliefs, you find that Horgan, Huizenga and these others are mired in
the pre-Renaissance mentality that Bacon, more than anyone else,
freed humanity from. These people never learned the scientific method.
- Jed
