Posted on 06/10/2005 7:22:08 PM PDT by snarks_when_bored
And thanks for the ping, PH.
One of the best books on science ever. I read this when it came out and I read all of Gardner's columns until he retired. No one else has ever made mathematics so much fun.
Creationist geology is faultless?
Dad died a few years ago and I've got all that stuff in my living room now. I look at those annual supplement things and read article after article which spouts liberal platitudes and glows with joy in how "The times they are a-changin'."
I want to rub Adler's nose in all that nonsense, but he seems to be dead. At least the the Great Books themselves are emminently worthwhile. Darwin's Origin and The Descent of Man are in there, of course. Long ago, I got more enjoyment out of The Iliad and Herodotus's History of the Persian Wars.
Why I now read "The American Scientist" and "Physics Today" (get that one free since I am a member of the APS.)
It's a good magazine, but without the old Sci Am appeal for young people. Nothing like C.L.Strong. Nothing like Mathematical Games.
Too much space devoted to obituaries.
(steely)
I too have the great books. :-)
Was not written for such though. I don't see any science mag appealing to kids these days. (except maybe environmental ones)
Right.
I've long harbored the belief that the one of the factors which gave rise to the environmental movement was a horror among a certain segment of society as they observed the way science/technology/science fiction took hold of the minds and hearts of the young in the '50's and '60's (it may have started well before that but, of course, I wasn't here).
My theory is that the environmental movement attempts to preempt the romantic attachment that many young people might otherwise develop for such things as space travel, aviation... in general, energy-intensive interests that might transform the world (and the nearby planets) into a different sort of place. Sort of a mass-psychology Luddite movement, if you take my meaning.
Of course, it won't work. But it's interesting to think about. Perhaps there's a novel of some sort in there.
(steely)
I once saw Adler being interviewed by William Buckley, many years ago. I recall Adler as being a bit of a windbag. I bought one of his books, on Aristotle. Thin stuff, really. The Great Books project was certainly worthwhile, but I can do without Adler's opinions.
Gneiss pun.....
My opinion is that it's hard to write science fiction for kids any more because they're so far ahead of us. My kids get bored with the old buzzing around the galaxy with hypothetical hyperdrive. They're looking at what's happening with artificial reality, genetic engineering, etc. and you don't see anyone writing it.
In a hundred years people will be born who will live close to 1000 years. By the end of their lives people could be living for 100,000 years.
Who's writing about this?
Who's writing about this? Good point.
Cyberpunk was all the rage for a while. Not sure what will be next.
Unfortunately cyberpunk was mostly really dark stuff and portrayed a very bleak future.
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