Is today's world better than ever?

[D_kian]

The comment that I mentioned was that in the speaker’s judgment there had not been a fundemental discovery in science since the turn of the century. All that we had seen was the extension or application of previous discoveries. He took this lack of progress as the result of Kantian philosophy.

That depends on what he means by fundamental.

One can argue the last fundamental dicoveries were Relativity and Quantum mechanics, in the early 1900s, and everything since then has been “merely” an extension or aplication of these.

This ignores developments like string theory in physics, and tons of dicoveries and developments in other fields. Biology has certainly amde many “fundamental” discoveries since 1900, including the discovery of DNA, the development of genetic engineering, and a slow but steady advance on figuring out how exactly genes work. And that’s just genetics. Since then developments like the electron microscope and the scaning-tunneling microscope have advanced the knwoledge of cell structure and function significantly. hell, the cytoskeleton wasn’t discovered until the early 80s. Astronomers have found things like Black Holes, the Big Bang (well, evidence for it) and inferred the existence of dark matter. Oh, in physics there’s atomic theory and particle physics, but that, too, began early last century.

I would agree there ahve been no scientists of the caliber of Einstein in a while, but then I would ask this question: how many fundamental discoveries in physics between Newton and Einstein?

Discuss

[Hotu_Matua]

I was standing in the lobby of a hotel in Boston before a Ford Hall Forum speech. I’m sorry, I do not remember the hotel or the year. I don’t remember if it was a speech by Ayn Rand or Leonard. I do remember three comments.

The lobby was fairly full. Standing nearby were three or four of the professors we went to hear at conferences (but not Leonard Peikoff). They were covering several different subjects over several minutes while they waited for someone. They talked about astronomy and the red shift briefly (doen’t mean distance, they thought).

One professor, speeking with conviction, said something that I have used often. Apparently referring to some shared experience, he said that the word couple could mean as many as eight.

The comment that I mentioned was that in the speaker’s judgment there had not been a fundemental discovery in science since the turn of the century. All that we had seen was the extension or application of previous discoveries. He took this lack of progress as the result of Kantian philosophy.

I have not been in contact with these people since then to ask follow-up questions.

Thanks for your explanatin, C.W.

Personally, I believe that there have been many Hank Reardens, John Galts and Howard Roarks out there. They are a tiny minority compared with the world population, but still a significant absolute number to make this world a better place.

Characters in Ayn Rand’s novels were inspired by real men and women. Those men and women did exist in Rand’s time, and they exist now.

Quantum physics, quarks, contraceptives, antibiotics, and specially genetics are all part of the XX century.

We have had not just better technology, but revolutionary knowledge, real breakthroughs.

I agree that science could have run much faster without the chains and cuffs of statism. But free minds are not stopped so easily.

Our science is far, far away from what scientists in XIX could have imagined. They laid the foundations, but our contemporary free men are also laying the foundations of what will come next.

Ayn Rand philosophy itself is growing, not declining. And this must be having a positive impact. If we deny the positive effect of Objectivism on mankind than we deny the strength of truth and reason, and the very nature of man. We should be the first ones to claim victory for the forces of good, not doom and defeat.

Ayn Rand was clear that the USA would become a dictatorship IF the course of evens kept unchanged. But through her work, and the work of people after her, and around her, our Titanic has been slowly drifting away from the icebergs. We are not out of danger, certainly. We are in the middle of a war. Irrationality surrounds us, besiege us. But we must be sure of our own victory. John Galt was always sure. It can’t be otherwise.