Our quest for knowledge and science as it reach a point where we need to rethink what we have been doing. We have wanted artificial Intelligence [AI] and now we have it we have robots building robots and computers designing computers. The fear comes when AI gets to smart and no longer needs us. It might be closer than you think. A Facebook experiment had to AI robots talking to each other and in a short time they developed their own language that people could not understand. Maybe they were talking on how to get rid us. That is a belief of the paranoid or just talking about the price of tea in China https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybr...preview-of-our-potential-future/#71fdd995292c https://qz.com/1043365/facebook-did...se-it-was-too-smart-it-was-actually-too-dumb/
I'm a little depressed today, I'm avoiding the news because that's the reason for it Maybe robots will be an improvement on society
Scientists are nowhere near as smart as many would like to believe. They do what they do, with nary a care as to the short term/long term outcome. A scientist never stops to ask 'should I do this', only 'can I do this', and is never held accountable for any harm his actions bring. Around 1000 people have died slow and horrific deaths from killer bees (http://www.softschools.com/facts/animals/killer_bees_facts/457/), yet the scientist responsible (Warwick E Kerr) goes unpunished. If AI becomes the nightmare that Hollyweird has so often envisioned, you can bet the scientists responsible will get the usual 'free pass' and 'get out of jail' card they always do.
Aw, come on @Neville Telen, you were just touting how much scientist's know in your posts on global warming.
I think you have me confused with the Humanist/Atheist fanboys that call Science their god, and scientists their priests. I have no more to do with them than with the abrahamic-based religions set. Do scientists know more than the average guy? Yes. Are they superior or infallible or whatever? No. Are they immune to greed, and will never sellout to the highest bidder? R U serious? Here's what I know about scientists: http://amasci.com/weird/wclose.html It tells me everything I need to know to not put them on a pedestal.
Although it runs contrary to clean science, it seems that scientists are quick to consider the search over and to render final decisions based on what they think they know. Perhaps this is necessary for their funding but it doesn't encourage me to trust their conclusions. Coupled with the fact that I wouldn't trust them to tell the truth if they did know it, I don't have a high opinion of scientists. Surely, they know more about their areas of expertise than I do, but that doesn't help, as far as I am concerned, if I can't trust them to be honest. Someone might be far more knowledgeable about finance than I am, but I wouldn't go into business with him if I knew that he had a history of swindling people.
Most of what is presented as fact these days is actually theory, premise or conjecture. Math deals mostly with facts, and Physics and Chemistry have some laws, etc., but everything in Weather, Climate, Biology and Medicine are theories, and many closely-held theories of the past have been proven wrong over time.
Exactly, the amasci link is packed with the darkside of science. One such example it the discovery of bacteria causing some forms of ulcers (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1283743/). This link sugarcoats it, but if you look into it, you will see just what lengths the scientific community went to, in an effort to suppress this discovery. Once a theory is accepted as fact, that 'fact' is never to be questioned, and any heretic that does is viciously attacked by most...if not all. The Scientific Method is quickly forgotten in favor of conformity and hypocrisy.