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In reply to the discussion: Dear Religion, While you were debating what chicken sandwiches were okay to eat,... [View all]hfojvt
(37,573 posts)39,200 babies in Africa were dying of neonatal tetanus.
Something Kiwanis, of which I am a member, is trying to raise $110 million to eliminate.
http://sites.kiwanis.org/Kiwanis/en/theELIMINATEproject/home.aspx
Of course, it was doubtles science (if not actually the human scientists) who gave us the tetanus vaccine with which that disease will be eliminated and science that gave us the knowledge of how important iodine is.
http://sites.kiwanis.org/Kiwanis/en/theELIMINATEproject/MNT/history/idd.aspx
But it is not science that motivates people to do something about the suffering of other people thousands of miles away.
Apparently now, somebody, in the name of science wants to brag about spending 22 times as much as it would take to eliminate neo-natal tetanus, to instead spend that money sending some sensors to Mars. Like that hasn't been done before.
As Vonnegut wrote:
"There had been much progress in the knowledge of how to do things. It was regrettable that there was less progress in the knowledge of things worth doing."
Or as Schumacher said,
"To do so, the task of education would be, first and foremost, the transmission of ideas of value, of what to do with our lives. There is no doubt also the need to transmit know-how but this must take second place, for it is obviously somewhat foolhardy to put great powers into the hands of people without making sure they have a reasonable idea of what to do with them. At present (1973), there can be little doubt that the whole of mankind is in mortal danger, not because we are short of scientific and technological know-how, but because we tend to use it destructively, without wisdom. More education can help us only if it produces more wisdom."
But hey, without science, how could we possibly play Global Thermonuclear War? So, thanks pal.