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The Sun, the Genome & the Internet

Author: Freeman J. Dyson

Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9780195129427

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

Author: Freeman J. Dyson

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2000-10-19

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9780199881468

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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

Author: Freeman Dyson

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2014-08-26

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1590178815

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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.

The Sun, the Earth, and Near-earth Space

Author: John A. Eddy

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780160838088

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" ... 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.

Doing Documentary Work

Author: Robert Coles

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780195124958

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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.

The Sun, the Genome, the Internet

Author: Freeman John Dyson

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780197743447

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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.

Pride

Author: Michael Eric Dyson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-02-01

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0198036477

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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.