The Sun, the Genome & the Internet

The Sun, the Genome & the Internet PDF Author: Freeman J. Dyson
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195129427
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
In this visionary look into the future, Freeman Dyson argues that technological changes fundamentally alter our ethical and social arrangements and that three rapidly advancing new technologies--solar energy, genetic engineering, and world-wide communication--together have the potential to create a more equal distribution of the world's wealth. Dyson begins by rejecting the idea that scientific revolutions are primarily concept driven. He shows rather that new tools are more often the sparks that ignite scientific discovery. Such tool-driven revolutions have profound social consequences--the invention of the telescope turning the Medieval world view upside down, the widespread use of household appliances in the 1950s replacing servants, to cite just two examples. In looking ahead, Dyson suggests that solar energy, genetics, and the Internet will have similarly transformative effects, with the potential to produce a more just and equitable society. Solar power could bring electricity to even the poorest, most remote areas of third world nations, allowing everyone access to the vast stores of information on the Internet and effectively ending the cultural isolation of the poorest countries. Similarly, breakthroughs in genetics may well enable us to give our children healthier lives and grow more efficient crops, thus restoring the economic and human vitality of village cultures devalued and dislocated by the global market. Written with passionate conviction about the ethical uses of science,The Sun, the Genome, and the Internetis both a brilliant reinterpretation of the scientific process and a challenge to use new technologies to close, rather than widen, the gap between rich and poor.

The Sun, the Genome & the Internet

The Sun, the Genome & the Internet PDF Author: Freeman J. Dyson
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195129427
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this visionary look into the future, Freeman Dyson argues that technological changes fundamentally alter our ethical and social arrangements and that three rapidly advancing new technologies--solar energy, genetic engineering, and world-wide communication--together have the potential to create a more equal distribution of the world's wealth. Dyson begins by rejecting the idea that scientific revolutions are primarily concept driven. He shows rather that new tools are more often the sparks that ignite scientific discovery. Such tool-driven revolutions have profound social consequences--the invention of the telescope turning the Medieval world view upside down, the widespread use of household appliances in the 1950s replacing servants, to cite just two examples. In looking ahead, Dyson suggests that solar energy, genetics, and the Internet will have similarly transformative effects, with the potential to produce a more just and equitable society. Solar power could bring electricity to even the poorest, most remote areas of third world nations, allowing everyone access to the vast stores of information on the Internet and effectively ending the cultural isolation of the poorest countries. Similarly, breakthroughs in genetics may well enable us to give our children healthier lives and grow more efficient crops, thus restoring the economic and human vitality of village cultures devalued and dislocated by the global market. Written with passionate conviction about the ethical uses of science,The Sun, the Genome, and the Internetis both a brilliant reinterpretation of the scientific process and a challenge to use new technologies to close, rather than widen, the gap between rich and poor.

The Sun, The Genome, and The Internet : Tools of Scientific Revolution

The Sun, The Genome, and The Internet : Tools of Scientific Revolution PDF Author: Freeman J. Dyson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199881468
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
In this visionary look into the future, Freeman Dyson argues that technological changes fundamentally alter our ethical and social arrangements and that three rapidly advancing new technologies--solar energy, genetic engineering, and world-wide communication--together have the potential to create a more equal distribution of the world's wealth. Dyson begins by rejecting the idea that scientific revolutions are primarily concept driven. He shows rather that new tools are more often the sparks that ignite scientific discovery. Such tool-driven revolutions have profound social consequences--the invention of the telescope turning the Medieval world view upside down, the widespread use of household appliances in the 1950s replacing servants, to cite just two examples. In looking ahead, Dyson suggests that solar energy, genetics, and the Internet will have similarly transformative effects, with the potential to produce a more just and equitable society. Solar power could bring electricity to even the poorest, most remote areas of third world nations, allowing everyone access to the vast stores of information on the Internet and effectively ending the cultural isolation of the poorest countries. Similarly, breakthroughs in genetics may well enable us to give our children healthier lives and grow more efficient crops, thus restoring the economic and human vitality of village cultures devalued and dislocated by the global market. Written with passionate conviction about the ethical uses of science, The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet is both a brilliant reinterpretation of the scientific process and a challenge to use new technologies to close, rather than widen, the gap between rich and poor.

The Scientist as Rebel

The Scientist as Rebel PDF Author: Freeman Dyson
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590178815
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
33 essays on the fads and fantasies of science and scientists—including climate prediction, genetic engineering, space colonization, and paranormal phenomena—by “the iconoclastic physicist who has become one of science’s most eloquent interpreters” (New York Times) “Provocative, touching, and always surprising.” —Wired Magazine From Galileo to today’s amateur astronomers, scientists have been rebels, writes Freeman Dyson. Like artists and poets, they are free spirits who resist the restrictions their cultures impose on them. In their pursuit of nature’s truths, they are guided as much by imagination as by reason, and their greatest theories have the uniqueness and beauty of great works of art. Dyson argues that the best way to understand science is by understanding those who practice it. He tells stories of scientists at work, ranging from Isaac Newton’s absorption in physics, alchemy, theology, and politics, to Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the structure of the atom, to Albert Einstein’s stubborn hostility to the idea of black holes. His descriptions of brilliant physicists like Edward Teller and Richard Feynman are enlivened by his own reminiscences of them. He looks with a skeptical eye at fashionable scientific fads and fantasies, and speculates on the future of climate prediction, genetic engineering, the colonization of space, and the possibility that paranormal phenomena may exist yet not be scientifically verifiable. Dyson also looks beyond particular scientific questions to reflect on broader philosophical issues, such as the limits of reductionism, the morality of strategic bombing and nuclear weapons, the preservation of the environment, and the relationship between science and religion. These essays, by a distinguished physicist who is also a prolific writer, offer informed insights into the history of science and fresh perspectives on contentious current debates about science, ethics, and faith.

Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Internet

Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Internet PDF Author: Anna Mancini
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761823780
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Western law, based on agriculture and industry, cannot deal with the virtual worlds created by the Internet, argues Mancini. The ancient Romans and Egyptians, on the other hand, were adept at virtuality, an intangible world that intersected with the tangible one, and it is to their laws that she turns for new frameworks and practices. Her study was accepted at a doctoral dissertation at the French National Scientific Research Center Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Sun, the Genome, the Internet

The Sun, the Genome, the Internet PDF Author: Freeman John Dyson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197743447
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Dyson argues that technological changes alter our ethical and social arrangements. He shows that advancing technologies - solar energy, genetic engineering and communication - have the combined potential to create more equal distribution of wealth.

Doing Documentary Work

Doing Documentary Work PDF Author: Robert Coles
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195124958
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Investigates the nature of documentary work, arguing that the work of an observer is not only to represent, but also to interpret reality, and uses examples from literature and photography to show how the observers' personal frame of reference has influenced his or her work.

Dreams of Earth and Sky

Dreams of Earth and Sky PDF Author: Freeman Dyson
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590178556
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In this sequel to The Scientist as Rebel (2006), Freeman Dyson—whom The Times of London calls “one of the world’s most original minds”—celebrates openness to unconventional ideas and “the spirit of joyful dreaming” in which he believes that science should be pursued. Throughout these essays, which range from the creation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century to the scientific inquiries of the Romantic generation to recent books by Daniel Kahneman and Malcolm Gladwell, he seeks to “break down the barriers that separate science from other sources of human wisdom.” Dyson discusses twentieth-century giants of physics such as Richard Feynman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Paul Dirac, and Steven Weinberg, many of whom he knew personally, as well as Winston Churchill’s pursuit of nuclear weapons for Britain and Wernher von Braun’s pursuit of rockets for space travel. And he takes a provocative, often politically incorrect approach to some of today’s most controversial scientific issues: global warming, the current calculations of which he thinks are probably wrong; the future of biotechnology, which he expects to dominate our lives in the next half-century as the tools to design new living creatures become available to everyone; and the flood of information in the digital age. Dyson offers fresh perspectives on the history, the philosophy, and the practice of scientific inquiry—and even on the blunders, the wild guesses and wrong theories that are also part of our struggle to understand the wonders of the natural world.

The Sun, the Earth, and Near-earth Space

The Sun, the Earth, and Near-earth Space PDF Author: John A. Eddy
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160838088
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
" ... Concise explanations and descriptions - easily read and readily understood - of what we know of the chain of events and processes that connect the Sun to the Earth, with special emphasis on space weather and Sun-Climate."--Dear Reader.

Pride

Pride PDF Author: Michael Eric Dyson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198036477
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Of the seven deadly sins, pride is the only one with a virtuous side. It is certainly a good thing to have pride in one's country, in one's community, in oneself. But when taken too far, as Michael Eric Dyson shows in Pride, these virtues become deadly sins. Dyson, named by Ebony magazine as one of the 100 most influential African Americans, here looks at the many dimensions of pride. Ranging from Augustine and Aquinas, MacIntyre and Hauerwas, to Niebuhr and King, Dyson offers a thoughtful, multifaceted look at this "virtuous vice." He probes the philosophical and theological roots of pride in examining its transformation in Western culture. Dyson discusses how black pride keeps blacks from being degraded and excluded by white pride, which can be invisible, unspoken, but nonetheless very powerful. Dyson also offers a moving glimpse into the teachers and books that shaped his personal pride and vocation. Dyson also looks at less savory aspects of national pride. Since 9/11, he notes, we have had to close ranks. But the collective embrace of all things American, to the exclusion of anything else, has taken the place of a much richer, much more enduring, much more profound version of love of country. This unchecked pride asserts the supremacy of America above all others--elevating our national beliefs above any moral court in the world--and attacking critics of American foreign policy as unpatriotic and even traitorous. Hubris, temerity, arrogance--the unquestioned presumption that one's way of life defines how everyone else should live--pride has many destructive manifestations. In this engaging and energetic volume, Michael Eric Dyson, one of the nation's foremost public intellectuals, illuminates this many-sided human emotion, one that can be an indispensable virtue or a deadly sin.

Teleneurology by Internet and Telephone

Teleneurology by Internet and Telephone PDF Author: A.J. Larner
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0857296914
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
Medical information is now widely available on the Internet and through telephone helplines such as NHS Direct and the focus on patient self care is likely to increase. Clinicians in all specialties will often encounter patients who have made self-directed searches for medical information prior to the clinical encounter. Teleneurology by Internet and Telephone is a study of patient information-seeking behaviour in neurology patients prior to referral from primary to secondary care. The book analyses frequency of Internet access and use, and of telephone helpline awareness and use. It also explores use of these modalities over time, use according to patient gender and age and by gender and age over time. Teleneurology by Internet and Telephone is an accessible overview of the utility of these modalities of health information provision and will be of interest not only to neurologists and clinicians in other specialities but also to public health researchers, sociologists and political scientists with an interest in questions of health care provision.