Monday 24 May 2010

Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist



Type: Self-improvement ScienceAuthor: Richard Feynman 
My rating: 5Buy now 

Posted by Dominic
Book introduction:

A collection of the seminar notes of Prof. Richard Feynman letures on the meaning/definition of science, how to be scientific, what is unscientific, how to keep pushing the research front, the conflict between benefit that science brings and the potential damages that it caused; between science/religious and between science/politics.

My review:

Well written and delivered seminar. I particularly enjoyed reading the conflict between science and religious, how religious can be defined into 3-parts

Meta-physics: Who we are and how we come about.

Ethic: How we should behave

Spirtual: Meta-physics and ethic alone are not enough to pursuade people to behave, we need a spirtual link to inspire people to behave as defined in ethic part of religious.

He further explained how meta-physics has been challenged many many times and has been modified, such as how man came to this earth, how the Sun didn't go round earth. How ethic has been upheld most of the time. The link meta-physics and spritual means that each time meta-physics is shaken, the spirtual part is shaken also.

Science Vs. politics:
Voters want to hear someone to tell them a "solution" instead of someone to tell them ways to find a practical solution. Politicians end up promising unachieveable goals/solutions and end up being called liars, and people have lost trust in politicians and they seek a new "liar" to tell them lies. This is very unscientific as Prof. Feynman puts it.

Prof. Feynman has also defined what it means to be scientific, and how people today have been very unscientific in many many ways.

Very interesting reading and it helps you to solve problems and everyday tasks in the scientific way. Highly recommended.

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