Re: [ontolog-forum] memory loss

[Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx>]

Randall

this particular portion of the thread has gone a bit astray from the intended point of discussion, so I 
did not continue the conversaion, but just to point out what I meant:

- a minority of people do make decisions for the rest of us, as to science and engineering as in other fields, but this is not necessarily ideal, we can see the consequences of separating 'technology' from 'economics' , 'engineering' from 'sustainability'
 These artificial divisions create people who may well be technical geniuses, but have little notion nor bear the responsibilities of the consequences of their actions (and systems) in the real world.  

Plus, there could be many more scientists and engineers , possible even more women? should these disciplines be more inclusive and had more people access to education and to the means of publicising their work. And if some work goes against the grain, it may well be rejected on other grounds, purely for the politics of science (never mind the philosophy)

So when you say:

 the relatively small minority of people with the cognitive
> abilities and proclivities to do science and engineering are enough
> to move the human race forward"
>
 I dont think so - 

 but 'to move a small minority of the human race a few steps forward'
perhaps yes


Paola (she)
:-)

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Randall R Schulz <rschulz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,

Are people overlooking the statement by Paulo to which
I was responding in the first place:

On Sunday October 11 2009, Paola Di Maio wrote:

> Amazing to see how far we got, given the
> inherent limitations of our human nature

My only point was that it doesn't take many individuals
to advance an entire population.

On Sunday October 11 2009, Ian Bailey wrote:
> Hi Randall,
>
> You wrote "The relatively small minority of people with the cognitive
> abilities and proclivities to do science and engineering are enough
> to move the human race forward"
>
> Aside from the inference that artists haven't moved the human race
> forward, I don't think you can lump engineers and scientists together
> quite so easily. The two communities think very differently, and
> probably have very different "cognitive abilities". Most scientists
> would argue that engineers don't actually have any cognitive
> abilities, and we'd be happy to bandy insults with them too, if we
> thought they'd get the joke.

They are not lumped and the lumping you suggest is not actually implied
by what I wrote. Both science and engineering are required, though for
a very long time, the world's inventors proceeded without a lot of
scientific grounding. That has become very unlikely to yield real
innovation any more. Consider the transistor; it could not have been
invented based on any intuition or trial and error. It's developers had
to understand that most counter-intuitive of the sciences, quantum
mechanics.

As for the contributions of the arts, which naturally I do appreciate,
they are of a wholly different character and don't help feed people,
create better shelter, make them more healthy or give them more or
better options for how to live or "make a living" (in the general sense
of sustaining one's corporeal being).

> It's true that engineers tend to use the products of scientific
> discovery (at least the 1% of those that actually stand true outside
> the laboratory), but I think it requires a different mindset to be a
> good engineer to that required to be a good scientist.

Of course. Why do you read what I wrote as a suggesting any single
mindset?

What I wrote is not a deep truth, but simply an empirical observation. A
minority of people do either science or engineering and these are the
things that create material advancement in the quality of human life.


> Cheers
> --
> Ian

Randall Schulz

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-- 
Paola Di Maio
**************************************************
Networked Research Lab, UK

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