Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book Chapter: Burke, James (1985), The Legacy of Science, Langley Research Center, Washington, DC, Retrieved on 2011-06-19Source Material [history.nasa.gov]
Folksonomies: science society progress Memes
19 JUN 2011
What Makes Something a Distinct Object?
Let me look at the envelope from a very basic point of view,
that of the neurophysiology of raw perception itself. Forgive me
if it’s a bit oversimple. Take me-on the back of your retina
I’m upside down, focused at the center but fuzzy at the edges,
two-dimensional, a barrage of photons releasing rhodopsin and
triggering neural impulses along the visual nerve. At the same
time, the pressure wave I’m setting up right now with all this talk
is causing little hairs inside the cochlea, in your in...Folksonomies: perception
Folksonomies: perception
1 
notes
notesOur perceptions are built on photons hitting our retinas and pressure variations tickling the folicles in our cochleas... so how does all that become something distinct in our mind's eye?
19 JUN 2011
Cultural Differences
The Italian model has a sign
like a wave, meaning, “Come here.” Greek girls cause problems for
non-Greek boys by saying “No” with a nod, not a shake, of their
head. In New Zealand you can do one kind of V-sign but never
the other. Americans look posh when they look neat; Europeans
look posh when they look as if they’ve just come through a hedge
backwards. A very fine linguistic example of model difference lies
in the way the Irish and the English express themselves. Where
the British will say... 1 notes
notesExamples of differences between various European countries in expressiveness.
19 JUN 2011
How Science Changes Society
Change is one of mankind’s most mysterious
creations. The factors that operate to cause it came
into play when man produced his first tool. With it he
changed the world forever, and bound himself to the
artifacts he would create in order, always, to make
tomorrow better than today. But how does change
operate? What triggers a new invention, a different
philosophy, an altered society? The interactive
network of man’s activities links the strangest,
most disparate elements, bringing together th... 1 notes
notesScience brings change upon society, forcing society to adapt to technological change and forcing more technological change.
19 JUN 2011
A Brief History of People Resisting Technological Advance...
Look at how often change is fought in history. Here’s an example
that always tickles me. The chain of events back in the twelfth
century that set Europe going economically after the Dark Ages
was essentially the textile revolution. A new loom came in from
Arab Spain. It had foot pedals, which left the weaver’s hands free
to weave faster and make more cloth cheaper. The Dutch weavers
smashed the thing up because it would have put people out of work.
(That was a new idea in the twelfth century.... 1 notes
notesEven though the advances ultimately benefit society as a whole, people resist and riot because they are put out of work or may lose power from the change.
19 JUN 2011
Accidental Inventions
To begin with, often you just don’t know change is coming. Even
if you’re personally involved, you may be looking the wrong way
at the time, like young William Perkin of London in 1856. Around
then, everybody wits looking for benzene rings and chemistry was
the flavor of the month, and Perkin, a chemist, was trying to be
the young science hero who would save the great British empire by
discovering the way to make artificial quinine chemically. You see, our administration and army chaps were d... 1 notes
notesIt is the search that produces revolutionary inventions, not the intention, discovering something useful is like winning the lottery in this passage, but you have to be knowledgeable enough to know that you have won it.
19 JUN 2011
Juxtaposition is the Spice of Life
Let me suggest a new axiom: juxtaposition is the spice of life.
Humanity’s biggest talent, unique to us, is juxtaposing, finding and
operating novel relationships between things or ideas... Recent ideas on neural activity suggest that the brain operates
in a very associative way, with small neuron clusters containing
core concepts, rather in the way a battery holds a trickle charge.
These core concepts would be irreducibly small fragments of sounds
or sights, or any phenomena that you experie... 1 notes
notesThe brain can be wired more ways then there are atoms in the Universe, and new combinations create new ideas and innovations.
19 JUN 2011
Technology Manufactures Social Change
The main thing, it seems to me, is to remember that technology
manufactures not gadgets, but social change. Once the first tool
was picked up and used, that was the end of cyclical anything. The
tool made a new world, the next one changed that world, the one
after that changed it again, and so on. Each time the change
was permanent. Using the tool changes the user permanently,
whether we like it or not. Once when I was in Moscow talking
to academician Petrov, I said, “Why don’t you buy Americ... 1 notes
notesExamples of technology changing society, unintended consequences.
19 JUN 2011
Ignoring Inconvenient Truths In Astronomy
Metaphysically speaking, no one paradigm
is innately any better than any other. A universe that began at
9 a.m. on October 10, 4004 B.C. (which was official back in the
seventeenth century) is intrinsically no less valuable for those who
live by a belief in it than is our present uncertain universe, perhaps
built like a yo-yo, forever destroying and remaking itself in
never-ending big bangs. Each of the cosmological theories has, at
different times, found totally ironclad evidence to support ...
1 In order to keep the Earth at the center of the Universe, theologians and astronomers had to come up with wild explanatory theories that did not fit the evidence.
19 JUN 2011
How Culture Influences Scientific Metaphors
If you believe the cosmos is made up of
omelette, you build instruments specifically designed to find traces
of intergalactic yolk. In that paradigm you reject phenomena like
pulsars and black holes as paranormal garbage. In an omelette
cosmos, the beginning of the universe becomes a chicken and egg
problem, doesn’t it?
Now, this definition of terms (like omelette universe) happens
all the time. The reason that we today refer to electricity in terms
of current is because in the eighteenth ce...Electricity has a current because Franklin thought it flowed like water, mal-aria is named after "bad air" because people thought it was caused by that, and we define the Universe it terms of clockwork or information depending on the cultural innovations of the time.
Parent Reference
The Impact of Science on SocietyBooks, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Asimov, Burke, Bergman (1985), The Impact of Science on Society, Langley Research Center, Washington, DC, Retrieved on 2011-06-18
Folksonomies: science society benefits scientific progress 