The Davey Dialogues - An Exploration of the Scientific Foundations of Human Culture

John C. Madden

Description

Linking Science and Science History with Culture - Essential Science for the Non-scientist.
The Davey Dialogues is an easy-to-understand history and background to key discoveries which have altered our perception of our universe and of ourselves, couched as a dialogue between the writer and a mysterious extra-terrestrial being with an agenda that may surprise you.
The dialogues provide background on the historical development of carefully selected scientific topics which are important to our understanding of ourselves and our surroundings. Amongst the questions discussed are: What do we know about our universe and how did we find out? How do we know how old it is, and, for that matter, how far away individual stars and galaxies are? How might life have originated? How does life replicate and change over time? How did religion evolve and why? To what extent do our brains resemble computers? How do we remember faces, facts and figures, and how do we think laterally? Do we have a free will? What is happiness and how can we maximize it?

"[A] rich, intelligent . . important book . . . clearly written."
J. Fraser Mustard, CC, Founding President, The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 09 juillet 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780991767533
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE DAVEY DIALOGUES
AN EXPLORATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN CULTURE
John C. Madden
STC Enterprises Vancouver
Published by STC Enterprises Inc.
Vancouver, BC, Canada
© John C. Madden 2012
Library and Archives Canada First Edition November, 2012 (ISBN 978-0-9917675-0-2) Second Print Edition February, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-9917675-1-9) Kindle Edition, June, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-9917675-2-6) ePub Edition, June, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-9917675-3-3)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief passages quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine. To perform any of the above is an infringement of copyright law.
Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html
To my grandchildren
Alex
Jamie
Andrew
Lilyana
Simon
PREFACE

The aim of science is not to open the door to everlasting wisdom but to set a limit on everlasting error.
BERTOLT BRECHT, The Life of Galileo
This book is an exploration of some of the science that has altered our world view and that may reasonably influence our assessment of ourselves and the place of humanity in the universe we inhabit.
At least since the time that the fabled Adam bit into the apple, knowledge has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. Life is, on the whole, much longer and pleasanter for most of us than it was for our hunter-gatherer forebears. But our huge advances in knowledge bring with them new challenges, some of which will put in question the existence of our species in ways much more complex and difficult than the invention of the hydrogen bomb has ever been able to do.
Our survival as a species, not to mention the happiness of our grandchildren and succeeding generations, will likely depend on enough of us understanding enough about ourselves and our environment to sort out which, if any, of the inevitable opposing views on vital issues is most likely to be correct.
In this endeavour, quite appropriately, most of us are influenced by the thinking of ancient philosophers, literary greats and religious thinkers. It is often challenging to sort out which parts of this cornucopia of imparted wisdom are truly timeless and which should be modified or even ignored in the light of our current understanding of the universe we live in. This book is intended to provide the reader with a tool set to help in this endeavour.
In some ways, therefore, the book deals as much in the history of science as in science itself, for, by and large, the savants of old were as influenced by the then current state of knowledge as we are. Some of their conclusions would clearly have been different had they known what we know today.
We humans are notoriously bad at choosing options that will make us happier, a fact discussed entertainingly and at some length by Dan Gilbert in his book, Stumbling on Happiness. This fault is at least partially attributable to the rather quixotic way in which our brains have evolved over the past 500 million years and the rather different lifestyles led by ourselves as opposed to our hunter-gatherer ancestors of only a few thousand years ago from whom our inherited set of instincts have come, with little time for species evolution to bring about material alteration adequate to match our very different circumstances.
Our conscious decisions are clearly influenced by our instincts, as well as by unconsciously acquired behaviour modification brought about by our experiences in life, especially experiences from early childhood when our brains were still actively developing. In the circumstances, the concept of “free will” seems ill-fitted to the triage process that apparently takes place in an ancient part of our brain called the amygdala, where instinctual and adapted behavioural biases mingle (unbeknownst to us) with conscious thought to determine action.
As unconscious as these biases may be to us, we can be sure that advertisers, politicians, producers of electronic games, movies and TV programs, casino owners, drug dealers, not to mention preachers and novelists, are all, to a degree, cognisant of what drives us and shape their pitches to resonate with the instinctual desires and needs of their audience. Because the merry band of persuaders listed above is much more likely to be aware of the instincts that drive us than are we, I have attempted to redress some of the imbalance in this book. Nevertheless most of us are at least vaguely aware that our conscious inputs are operating in prevailing winds and currents that are capable of overpowering our conscious desires and sending our frail vessel off in unintended directions. It is my hope that this book will help the reader to better understand this process amongst others. The discourse is intended to be intelligible to my grandchildren when they reach their late teens or early twenties. It does not require a background in science.
Some of the questions addressed by philosophy and religion over the ages, and which are also addressed in the dialogues include:
Are humans different in essence from animals or merely one of many species?
How old is Earth? How big and how old is the universe?
How did life come about?
How do our brains work? Is this very different from the way other animal brains work?
What is happiness? What makes us happy?
Do we have a free will?
What is the scientific basis for morality?
Science certainly does not yet have all the answers to such questions, but especially in the last fifty years or so hundreds of thousands of motivated and intelligent people have together furnished us with a mutually re-enforcing array of facts that together provide us with a framework out of which new answers to old questions are emerging. This dialogue draws primarily on the scientific developments I believe are most relevant to those who want to develop their own answers to such questions.
In order to keep the book to a reasonable length, it was necessary to select topics with care and to summarize unmercifully, while still maintaining interest by occasional excursions into greater detail. The general layout is as follows:
Part 1: Introduction.
Part 2: How our understanding of space and time evolved, along with our theories of the universe.
Part 3: Darwin, evolution and early lessons from the study of animals and human societies.
Part 4: The workings of cellular life and the coding of it in DNA. How might life have emerged?
Part 5: How does the brain remember, learn and associate seemingly disparate thoughts? Is there a hidden agenda?
Part 6: How do the real drivers of human happiness differ from what we might think they are? Why might this be so?
Part 7: Some concluding advice from Davey – the cool outside participant in the dialogues, who is pessimistic about the future of humanity but who has a challenging problem of his own to address.
Early readers of this book varied substantially in what they wanted to know about the way in which important new scientific discoveries came about. One or two said, “Just give me the facts, and spare me the details.” For others, the inclusion of some details of the route to new discoveries was more than just interesting. For them, these details represented the essential background needed for the dialogue to be credible, especially where the discussion challenged a long-held belief. It is difficult, if not impossible, to please everyone in this respect. But those readers who find uninteresting the details of how particular new discoveries were made are encouraged to make a guilt-free skip of the more detailed descriptions and look for the factual summary that occurs near the end of most of the dialogues.
The urge to skip may be particularly strong in the sections dealing with the biosciences. All life forms turn out to be extraordinarily intricate and complex chemical factories. Sadly, but inevitably, rather lengthy and confusing vocabularies have blossomed to describe the essential components of these factories, resulting in some heavy reading for the novice. A brief glossary to help the reader over rough spots is included at the back of the book.
The introduction of Davey as an interlocutor in the proceedings was strongly welcomed by some early readers but rejected by others who nonetheless enjoyed reading “the scientific parts”. If you find yourself agreeing with the latter readers, please do as they did, and move on quickly, though you may find that toward the end of the book, Davey lays out some rather interesting ideas.
There is a wealth of good science writing out there that treats in greater detail than I could cover all of the topics raised in this book. Many of my favourite books and writers appear in the Bibliography and can serve as useful routes to a better understanding of topics that have been rather summarily treated herein.
If there is a message in this book it is that we are most fortunate to live at a time when, perhaps for the first time ever, we can delight in a coherent story about us and our universe. What the physicists and the philosophers, the economists and the ecologists, the anthropologists and the animal behaviouralists, the religious historians, the neuroscientists and the biochemists are telling us by and large falls into place to provide a consistent story of the development of our universe and of humanity. Of course the story is not yet complete. There is much more to discover and understand, but the outlines are there in ample detail.
You, dear reader, will want to draw your own conclusions about what, if anything, this story is saying to you about how you should live your life. Whatever you conclude, it is my earnest hope that what you read herein will not only pique your in