Man must find it interesting that sooo many historic events are occuring at the same time:
- Ability to communicate instantly globally (telecom & internet) and share/build upon knowledge and experiences (Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) through technology
- Ability to clone life / mapping of the human genome
- Ability to create a machine that can potentially explain the origins of the universe, but at the same time, could potentially* destroy the world
Seems like all that's left to understand is the human mind, about which scientists will all agree that man doesn't have a clue.
* CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Two things are most important about this project. 1) It is built by humans, and therefore susceptible to error** and 2) The "very very unlikely" error would have Bad consequences -- a black hole. This in contrast to an error where the consequences could be quite positive -- a white hole (not possible with the LHD).
** Human error, amongst even the best & brightest humans, has consistently reared its ugly head. Nobel prize winning economist Myron Scholes was instrumental in the rise, and fall, of Long Term Capital Management. And what about the risk management at the investment banks, Federal Reserve, and U.S. Treasury? The risks that their scientific financial models all deemed to be "very very unlikely" turned out to be completely wrong. In other words, when a safety board filled with Nobel laureates says that the LHD is "almost completely totally safe" I roll my eyes. And pray to God. :smile:
