> What he's really saying in this opinion piece is that he doesn't care a whit about evidence, and isn't interested enough in his fellow human beings to try to persuade them with careful reasoning
More accurately there is a different reason to do things. Remember that no one is compelled to go on the missions. We don't know what we don't know. Humans are naturally curious and natural explorers - look at what happened in the late 15th and 16th centuries. The various voyages that are celebrated (eg Columbus) were definitely not made based on evidence! There was a 90% mortality rate on the first British settlements in the US in that timeframe. At the beginning of the 20th century we had mad dashes for the poles. (They could and sometimes did fly over them which is "better" based on evidence.) In the middle of the century some people got to the top of Mt Everest and came back again - again pointless about the evidence. Lots of people died in these explorations. I think it is just fine encouraging people to explore. The only valid question is how much to subsidise it via tax payer's money. To put it into perspective in the US: "The entire running budget of NASA since it's inception in 1958 adds up to $526.18 billion. That's about $173 billion less than the 2008 bank bailout."
As for your pollution etc issues, it really is worth looking into the facts. From Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist: "When I was a student here in Oxford in the 1970s, the future of the world was bleak. The population explosion was unstoppable. Global famine was inevitable. A cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was going to shorten our lives. The acid rain was falling on the forests. The desert was advancing by a mile or two a year. The oil was running out, and a nuclear winter would finish us off. None of those things happened, (Laughter) and astonishingly, if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per-capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has tripled. Lifespan is up by 30 percent in my lifetime. Child mortality is down by two-thirds. Per-capita food production is up by a third. And all this at a time when the population has doubled."
Comments
> What he's really saying in this opinion piece is that he doesn't care a whit about evidence, and isn't interested enough in his fellow human beings to try to persuade them with careful reasoning
More accurately there is a different reason to do things. Remember that no one is compelled to go on the missions. We don't know what we don't know. Humans are naturally curious and natural explorers - look at what happened in the late 15th and 16th centuries. The various voyages that are celebrated (eg Columbus) were definitely not made based on evidence! There was a 90% mortality rate on the first British settlements in the US in that timeframe. At the beginning of the 20th century we had mad dashes for the poles. (They could and sometimes did fly over them which is "better" based on evidence.) In the middle of the century some people got to the top of Mt Everest and came back again - again pointless about the evidence. Lots of people died in these explorations. I think it is just fine encouraging people to explore. The only valid question is how much to subsidise it via tax payer's money. To put it into perspective in the US: "The entire running budget of NASA since it's inception in 1958 adds up to $526.18 billion. That's about $173 billion less than the 2008 bank bailout."
As for your pollution etc issues, it really is worth looking into the facts. From Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist: "When I was a student here in Oxford in the 1970s, the future of the world was bleak. The population explosion was unstoppable. Global famine was inevitable. A cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was going to shorten our lives. The acid rain was falling on the forests. The desert was advancing by a mile or two a year. The oil was running out, and a nuclear winter would finish us off. None of those things happened, (Laughter) and astonishingly, if you look at what actually happened in my lifetime, the average per-capita income of the average person on the planet, in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has tripled. Lifespan is up by 30 percent in my lifetime. Child mortality is down by two-thirds. Per-capita food production is up by a third. And all this at a time when the population has doubled."
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.htm...