{"id":29117,"date":"2017-12-23T10:48:15","date_gmt":"2017-12-23T15:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29117"},"modified":"2017-12-23T10:48:15","modified_gmt":"2017-12-23T15:48:15","slug":"h-g-wells-and-orwell-on-whether-science-can-save-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29117","title":{"rendered":"H.G. Wells and Orwell on Whether Science Can Save Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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H.G. Wells and Orwell on Whether Science Can Save Humanity<\/a><\/h3>\n
Though Wells and Orwell were debating in the era of Nazism, many of their arguments reverberate today.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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In the midst of contemporary science\u2019s stunning discoveries and innovations \u2013 for example, 2017 alone brought the editing of a human embryo\u2019s genes<\/a>, the location of an eighth continent under the ocean<\/a> and the ability to reuse a spacecraft\u2019s rocket boosters<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s easy to forget that there\u2019s an ongoing debate over science\u2019s capacity to save humankind. Seventy-five years ago, two of the best-known literary figures of the 20th century, H.G. Wells and George Orwell, carried on a lively exchange over this very issue.<\/p>\n

Wells, one of the founders of science fiction, was a staunch believer in science\u2019s potential. Orwell, on the other hand, cast a much more skeptical eye on science, pointing to its limitations as a guide to human affairs.<\/p>\n

Expecting from science what it cannot deliver is just as hazardous as failing to acknowledge its great potential. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though Wells and Orwell were debating in the era of Nazism, many of their arguments reverberate today in contemporary debates over science and policy. For example, in 2013, biologist Richard Dawkins<\/a> justified confidence in science in these terms: \u201cScience works. Planes fly. Cars drive. Computers compute. If you base medicine on science, you cure people. If you base the design of planes on science, they fly. It works\u2026.\u201dOn the other hand, Nobel laureate Peter Medawar<\/a> famously argued that there are many important questions that science cannot answer, such as, \u201cWhat is the purpose of life?\u201d and \u201cTo what uses should scientific knowledge be put?\u201d<\/p>\n

Confronting challenges such as climate change and feeding the 2 billion people who lack a reliable source of food, it might be natural to regard science as humanity\u2019s only hope. But expecting from science what it cannot deliver is just as hazardous as failing to acknowledge its great potential.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H.G. Wells and Orwell on Whether Science Can Save Humanity Though Wells and Orwell were debating in the era of Nazism, many of their arguments reverberate today. In the midst of contemporary science\u2019s stunning discoveries and innovations \u2013 for example, 2017 alone brought the editing of a human embryo\u2019s genes, the location of an eighth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[14991,1211,17636,17635,17637,705],"class_list":["post-29117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-foundation-for-economic-education","tag-george-orwell","tag-hg-wells","tag-richard-gunderman","tag-role-of-science","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29118,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29117\/revisions\/29118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}