He should write a book: How to **** with people’s minds and get away with it. Wait, no, let’s just call it Astrophysics
Astrobollocks. How many times has there been a discovery that meant the textbooks would have to be written?
Er, that’s how it works, isn’t it?
Apparently so. That’s why i think it’s bollocks. No one in this tiny speck of time we occupy has the first idea what happened gaddillions of years in the past. They can only theorise.
At the end of the day it means nothing because the Sun, the moon, the earth, the planets, the stars and us are here, now, regardless of the origins. And it won’t determine our short term future.
It’s a shame you don’t see the beauty of pure science - not everything has to be applicable to the making of toasters or carpet tiles.
And sometimes pure science does lead to practical innovations, in unexpected ways.
For a slightly more upbeat take than yours.
For me, personally, I find astrophysics truly fascinating, but that doesn’t stop me from having my feet planted firmly on the ground. If anything, I would say that astrophysics has brought home to me how insignificant we are as a species on a tiny rock in a solar system which is itself somewhere near the outer edge of the galaxy it is located in, and that we could and should do better to try and prevent being the catalysts of our own demise.
Strangely enough, for me it’s quite the opposite. When I think of the sheer enormity of universe after universe and just how insignificant we are as part of whatever this is, I find that very comforting and think that mankind’s demise is neither here nor there and really does not matter.
Well it does if you are a part of the mankind that’s being demised.
If you are actually a Zillon from the planet Thaarg here to report on us, then not so much.
Toaster or carpet tiles? Your condescension doesn’t impress me. All that science could be applied to finding a definitive cure for cancer, climate change or feeding the world and any number of problems facing humanity. Take your intellectual superiority, your toaster and your carpet tiles and have a lovely evening.
Ally has left the building
Why would I? I’ve done nothing to reproach myself for or to hide from.
I was able to put my point forward without attempting to demean or insult those of an opposing view. For a friendly forum, that’s been a recurring theme.
For me - not really. Perhaps it’s easier for me, I have no children so this idea that mankind must continue is perhaps less of an issue.
While I can appreciate that you didn’t intend insult, it’s very hard not to see it that way.
We’re the first generation of the first species to pose the contre-Darwinian question, ‘would the world be better off without us?’
‘Please answer in no more than three concise sentences.’
On a more down to earth note, when my children were around 5 years old my son came home from school and announced that he knew when the world was going to end.
“In 5 billion years the sun will get so big it will swallow us up”
My slightly younger daughter gave this a great deal of thought then said “I expect I will be a grandmother by then”
I should probably have qualified that by adding that “hastening our demise” to me means acting in a manner in which we deliberately end up destroying our planet, outside of the astrophysical probabilities of catastrophic collisions with other matter from space, and the inevitability of being swallowed up by our sun.
Arguably, yes.
Without humans the natural world would regain its own equilibrium.
However, without human creativity this world may be less extraordinary and unique.
I doubt it somehow. How extraordinary is it that an acorn produces an oak tree, or that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly? Or that butterflies and birds migrate half way round the world and remember their way there and back?
Those natural things are indeed beautiful and amazing and in no way less worthy. However, without humans manifesting unprecedented and unpredictable artworks, music or architecture, the world would perhaps be a little less than it could be.
Not that all art or music (or architecture) is worthy of eternal admiration, but so much is. I wish I were in London this week with so many exhibitions….