I watched this programme tonight "Brave New World" Presented by Stephen Hawking no less! I recently read his latest(?) book "The Grand Design" which attempts to give scientific answers on the big questions in life and the origins of the universe. After reading it- although I had to further investigate some of the terminology- My mind was blown. There are things that We are on the brink of understanding, almost at all times, but according to Professor Hawking we are on the edge of discovering a unified "theory of everything" and lets face it, if that can be concisely, eloquently and simply represented as fact, "God" will be well and truly under the carpet.
Here are the highlights of the programme I watched:-
- A self driving car. Developed by the engineers at some fancy car company? No! By the engineers at Google! Guided by sensors, cameras laser projections and satellite navigation. It can even negotiate an american freeway at speed!
- A wheelchair controlled by the brain. In Switzerland, a team of scientists have developed an interface allowing a person to move and steer an electric wheelchair using only signals from their brain. Prof. Charles Xavier-style.Hawking's co presenter was able to do it after some basic training. If you'll forgive a light-hearted joke, Hawking is probably watching this one with great anticipation!
- A robot "child" that can learn. Yup. you read that right. It's called the iCub. Not only can it learn, it is also self aware- it learns the ways it can possibly move, the restrictions; the "rules" if you like. The older generation ones can also differentiate between, Indicate and select objects committed to memory that it "sees" when asked via microphone.
- Mechanical Exoskeletons. As well as giving the able bodied person triple their usual strength, Exoskeletal legs are being used in a clinic in Philadelphia to allow paraplegics to walk again.
- A telescope searching for distant planets. This may seem relatively arbitrary to some compared with some of the others, but this particular telescope can see so far into the universe, so far into time itself, it can see stars, planets and galaxies being formed. One of its main tasks is searching for planets like earth, of which the chances, however astronomical they may seem, aren't forbidding.
It is with regard to things such as this, that I am incredulous as to how some people do not set store by science at all. Think of the possibilities with these five examples alone in mind? Can you imagine perhaps, being driven home from work after a long shift in complete safety and efficiency after pressing a few buttons? Maybe someone who has been told they would never walk again, being able to pop along to the shop for a morning paper on their mechanised legs.
And yet, all this in an age where faith based groups campaign against vaccination of the Human Papaloma Virus, the sexually transmitted infection that is the main cause of Cervical Cancer. Bridget Maher of the "Family Research Clinic" said she would oppose the vaccine as it emerged a few years ago, because the girls “may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex."
Get a Fucking Grip.
Lets see your precious faith help someone walk after being paralyzed from the waist down. Lets see you lot find a new planet suitable for life, given that science has now told you the earth is not flat and at the centre of a 6000 year old universe.
