27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Shannon and Thorp Hack the Roulette Wheel
It was in this tinkerer’s laboratory that they set out to understand how roulette could be gamed, ordering “a regulation roulette wheel from Reno for $1,500,” a strobe light, and a clock whose hand revolved once per second. Thorp was given inside access to Shannon in all his tinkering glory:
Gadgets . . . were everywhere. He had a mechanical coin tosser which could be set to flip the coin through a set number of revolutions, producing a head or tail according to the setting. As a joke... 1 
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notes09 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Humanists Do Not Fear Technology
As humanists who value human creativity and human reason and who have seen the benefits of science and technology, we are decidedly willing to take part in the new scientific and technological developments around us. We are encouraged rather than fearful about biotechnology, alternative energy, and information technology, and we recognize that attempts to reject these developments or to prevent their wide application will not stop them. Such efforts will merely place them in the hands of othe...
1 They are cautiously optimistic about scientific progress.
09 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is Conservative
A discovery in science, or a new theory, even when it appears most unitary and most all-embracing, deals with some immediate element of novelty or paradox within the framework of far vaster, unanalysed, unarticulated reserves of knowledge, experience, faith, and presupposition. Our progress is narrow; it takes a vast world unchallenged and for granted. This is one reason why, however great the novelty or scope of new discovery, we neither can, nor need, rebuild the house of the mind very rapi... 1 notes
notesIt only reveals a very narrow part of reality, and we must accept that we cannot understand most of it, but we can know more and more.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science Depends on Revolutions Large and Small
Scientific development depends in part on a process of non-incremental or revolutionary change. Some revolutions are large, like those associated with the names of Copernicus, Newton, or Darwin, but most are much smaller, like the discovery of oxygen or the planet Uranus. The usual prelude to changes of this sort is, I believed, the awareness of anomaly, of an occurrence or set of occurrences that does not fit existing ways of ordering phenomena. The changes that result therefore require 'put... 1 notes
notesSmall ones, like the discovery of oxygen and Uranus, that requires thinking in a way to uncover anomalies.
24 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Scientific Progress has More Effect on Humanity Than Anyt...
How much has happened in these fifty years—a period more remarkable than any, I will venture to say, in the annals of mankind. I am not thinking of the rise and fall of Empires, the change of dynasties, the establishment of Governments. I am thinking of those revolutions of science which have had much more effect than any political causes, which have changed the position and prospects of mankind more than all the conquests and all the codes and all the legislators that ever lived. 1 notes
notesMore than politics, conquests, or legislation.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Revolutions That Break with the Past Fail
Starting anew with a clean slate has been one of the most harmful ideas in history. It treats previous knowledge as an impediment and imagines that only present knowledge deployed in theoretical purity can make real the wondrous new vision. Thus the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949 each made brave new worlds that catastrophically failed. By cutting off continuity with the slower parts of their cultures they had no fallback... 1 notes
notesErasing the past is a crippling thing to do. The Founders of America built on the past in their revolution and Evolution succeeds by building on the past.
15 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Science is the Great Instrument of Social Change
But science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilisation. 1 notes
notesBecause it works to acquire knowledge, not change, and does this silently, it is "the most vital of all the revolutions."
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Time Fertile in Sciences is Scarce in Human History
For out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends, you can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences or favorable to their development. In times no less than in regions there are wastes and deserts. For only three revolutions and periods of learning can properly be reckoned: one among the Greeks, the second among the Romans, and the last among us, that is to say, the nations of Western Europe. And to each of these hardly two centuries can justl... 1 notes
notesFor out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends, you can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences or favorable to their development.
