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Science,The Big Picture,and the Petri Dish
David P. AndersonUC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab
Earth as Petri dish
● Human activities– land clearing, logging, hunting, fishing– roads, dams, pollution
● Species extinction ● Global warming
animalsplants
microbes
animalsplants
microbes
animalsplants
microbes
atmosphere
ocean
ecosystems
Possible outcomes
● Everything somehow works out OK● Humans become sustainable
– but massive starvation, loss of many other species
● All large animals become extinct– plants/microbes survive and resume
evolution● Mars scenario
– atmosphere/water lost; total extinction
Bacterial thinking● Priorities:
– Consumption– Reproduction– Growth
● Selfishness (individual, group)● Small conceptual scale
– Temporal– Spatial
The Big Picture
Science as Truth detector
● Reproducibility● Experiment design● No power hierarchy● Constant questioning of assumptions● No ulterior motives
Theorymathematical/
statistical
evidence prediction
Orders of magnitude
10-17 meters = a quark10-14 meters = an atom10-9 meters = a molecule10-5 meters = a cell101 meter = a human being107 meters = the Earth1012 meters = the solar system1017 meters = the milky way galaxy (100,000 light-years)1025 meters = the universe (15 billion years light-years)
Occam's Razor and the Axiomatic method
Is there an analogous basis for ethics?
Zermelo-Frankel Set Theory:
Science respects Mystery
● Quantum mechanics● Chaos theory● Godel's incompleteness theorem
– no theory decides everything– the Continuum Hypothesis
False maybeundecidable
maybe True
Integers (1,2,...),rationals (n/m)
Real numbers(3.14159...)
??< <
The achievements of Science
● Understanding at wide range of scales● There is only one science● It has liberated humanity● It has empowered humanity (for better
or worse)
Science and nature
● The Earth is not the center of the universe
● Humans were not created separately from the rest of nature
● Humans are a part of the web of life, and depend on it for their survival
Our place in the Universe
● Our lifetime is extremely brief● The world is tiny, and we're stuck here● But we have intelligence and creativity
Carl Sagan:Intelligence is the universe's way of understanding itself.
Scientific government
● The War on Drugs– $1 Trillion spent since 1973– 10 times more drug addicts today than in
1973– 2.1 million people in prison, 25% for drugs– 10% of black males are currently in prison– Dutch drug policy (public-health based)
● drug use is 1/3 of U.S. (hard and soft)● incarceration rate is 11% of U.S.
● Sex education– ignorance doesn't work
Game TheoryThe mathematical study of conflict and cooperation.“Rational behavior” == bacterial thinking.Example: The Prisoner's Dilemma:
2, 2
1, 13, 0
0, 3prisoner 1
ffo
don't confess
prisoner 2
confess
confess
don'tconfess
“Nash equilibrium”
Anti-Science and bacterial thinking
● Religion– A society-stabilizing institution
● Chauvinism● Out-of-control Capitalism
● Science is relativistic and unemotional● Science doesn't try to be comforting● Science doesn't provide simple answers● The role of evolution
Why is Science losing?
What can we do?
● Articulate goals● Promote big-picture thinking
– improve education, teach skepticism– promote a scientific belief system– my contribution: volunteer computing
● or use game theory to achieve goals in spite of bacterial thinking