Education, our greatest resource

In his famous book Small is Beautiful (1973), Ernest Schumacher dedicates an interesting chapter to education, which he calls our greatest resource. Let's look at a few quotes from that chapter, whose title is similar to the title of this post:

If western civilisation is in a state of permanent crisis, it is not far-fetched to suggest that there may be something wrong with its education. No civilisation, I am sure, has ever devoted more energy and resources to organised education, and if we believe in nothing else, we certainly believe that education is, or should be, the key to everything. In fact, the belief in education is so strong that we treat it as the residual legatee of all our problems. If the nuclear age brings new dangers; if the advance of genetic engineering opens the doors to new abuses; if commercialism brings new temptations -- the answer must be more and better education.

Technology with a human face

Ernest Schumacher

In his famous 1973 book Small is Beautiful, Ernest Schumacher advocates a technology with a human face, because (according to him) the way modern technology has been developed dehumanizes us. Let's look at a few quotes from the chapter in his book with the same title as this post:

...the modern world has been shaped by technology. It tumbles from crisis to crisis; on all sides there are prophecies of disaster and, indeed, visible signs of breakdown.

...technology, although the product of man, tends to develop by its own laws and principles, and these are very different from those of human nature or of living nature in general. Nature always, so to speak, knows where and when to stop... Technology recognises no self-limiting principle... [T]he super-technology of the modern world, acts like a foreign body, and there are now numerous signs of rejection.

Edward Bellamy: philosophical science fiction

The golden age of science fiction is the name given to the period between 1940 and 1965. The same years are also considered the golden age of cinema. The previous years of the genre, on the other hand, are usually seen as clearly inferior, mainly pulp fiction, and it's common to say that science fiction was in an incipient state, that it had barely emerged from the mists of literary prehistory.

This would be clearly wrong. During those years there were noteworthy works, such as the first version of Murray Leinster's The forgotten planet (1920-21); R.U.R. by Karel Capek (1920), with the first appearance of the word robot; Zamyatin's We (1921), which influenced Aldous Huxley and George Orwell; Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932); and towards the end of this period, Out of the silent planet by C.S. Lewis (1938).

Intelligent design or random evolution?

Charles Darwin

As all scientific theories, the theory of evolution will always be provisional, but in a century and a half it has been quite well contrasted. It's not likely that a scientific revolution will declare it wrong or obsolete, although perhaps there will be fine tuning, as with Newton's physics and Einstein's theory of general relativity. An attack on the theory of evolution should be based on finding discrepant facts, which up to now have never appeared.

The problem is, some of those who defend the theory of evolution go one step further and offer philosophical speculations and dogmatic statements as though they were testable scientific theories.

As every scientific theory, the theory of evolution is a set of hypotheses that try to explain certain facts. It is based on the verification that species change, and studies the mechanisms that can lead to this change: mutations, DNA, natural selection... Added philosophical connotations are not scientific, whether it is affirmed, with believers, that there is intelligent design; or with atheists, that everything is a consequence of chance.