h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great article!

I can't (never can) resist mentioning that one of my favourite books, 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid' mentions Bacteriophages... well, it mentions a particular one, which (if memory serves) has the shortest DNA sequence of any known organism...

Fascinating stuff...

26199

Glad you liked it!

I've heard of the book you mentioned. I'll look out for it now someone's given me reason to believe it's a good read. Thanks for that.

Sal

I'd definitely recommend it, but with a health warning: if you're not into mathematics in any way, you'll end up skipping quite a few parts. And if you are into mathematics, you'll end up puzzling for quite a while about some bits

That said, it's about as light-hearted and easy to follow as any book containing detailed information about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem can be

26199

I appreciate the warning. Although I'm very fond of maths, my knowledge is pretty basic. Roger Penrose has driven me mad trying work out stuff that's a few steps beyond my ability level. Very frustrating. Still, I'm game. If I find it, I'll wrestle with it.

Sal

Hi Sal. Another really interesting entry, especially for me as it links up with my interest in genetic engineering. Using bacteriophages to combat disease is very much like using biologic pest control methods and it raises the issue of, when is 'natural' really natural? Or, when can 'natural' in fact be extremely dangerous? Instead of stock answers and knee-jerk responses it would pay if people took some time and really found out what it's all about.

By the way please read GEB:AEGB, it's really interesting and weird. You need a bit of time and concentration to finish it but it's not hard to follow. In fact if you make it through the book you'll perhaps be able to understand Roger Penrose a bit more easily.

Hiya Case. Nice to see you over this end of the site! Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you found it interesting.

You know from our previous conversation over at Wazungu's Waterhole, that I have mixed feelings about GM. Actually, the thing that worries me most is the apparent lack of caution on the part of /some/ of the scientists. You remember what we were saying about the triple stacked herbicide-tolerance and pesticide-resistance genes in that Canadian oil seed rape plants? They had managed to cross pollinate each other in the fields (even though they were planted in different years), to incorporate all 3 modifications in the one plant, which is now growing like a weed in every nook and cranny. It's incredibly difficult to get rid of it without the use of extremely powerful, toxic herbicides. If caution had been used, that shouldn't have happened. I think the knee-jerk reaction is a bit like a short term survival mechanism, but once your knee has jerked, you should look at the issues carefully and find out everything you can before reaching a well-informed conclusion. The trouble is, if it looks to ordinary, lay people as though the scientists are on a run-away train and nobody on the train is interested in judiciously applying the brakes, a knee-jerk reaction seems necessary - to start with at least. You can't take your time to examine the issues while you're watching them arming the bomb and sticking their fingers in their ears ready for the bang, to use another analogy. So I agree with you, but I can see why people resort to knee-jerk reactions.

Thanks for the reading recommendation. I'll look out for the book. If it helps to understand the sometimes impenetrable writings Roger Penrose, it'll be well worth a read.

Sal

How do we educate the apathetic and lethargic general public about the important issues that they need to understand in order to respond effectively to the problems mankind faces/will soon face? You're writing entries here about fairly specialized subjects, and that helps - but how can we make more people read and understand them?

For that matter, how can we make scientists smarter and/or more ethical?

Hi Case,

I've answered your posts here and over at Wazungu's in one huge message over on your home page. It hasn't popped up at the top of your conversations list because, I guess, you haven't clicked on that bit of underlined text between your introduction and your journal entries where it says "Click here to be notified of new Conversations about this entry", yet.

Sal