Useless scientists.

[bindeweede]

This, from a medium/psychic site.....

To realise how utterly bloody ridiculous it is for scientists or anyone else to believe they can control the temperature of Earth and its fluctuations, you only have to go outside and look up to the sky.
That - all that lot up there - is what these bloody idiots profess to be able to "control" via regulation of just one of the things - carbons - that interact to produce earth's atmosphere.

It is the most complex thing imaginable ! In fact it is complexity BEYOND imagination.
And these prats who cannot even cure a common cold reckon they can "regulate" (and therefore "control") THAT ?
Trust me, they are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Getting back to our current question, it asks us to define the very nature of mankind, something some of the best minds on this earth have been trying to do for thousands of years.

We can and should keep trying. But, Gawd, if only we knew the answer to that question ! It would explain so much to us.

The fact is, on things that REALLY matter, we "know" very little more than the Egyptians knew 4000 years ago.

P.S. - Or, to put it another way, we are still blundering along in the dark and, in this country at least, we seem to now be going backwards in many respects. (Just been reading today's paper - yet more gratuitous murders - what the hell are things coming to ?

Cloud Cuckoo Land.......?

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Sounds like a Daily Mail reader

[bobdezon]

Such a broad sweeping statement really, it doesnt even stick to the same subject it just meanders about and returns to some ancient egyptian crap. Its more like a conversation with a pissed old fella in a backstreet pub than a web blog.

[median]

And these prats who cannot even cure a common cold reckon they can "regulate" (and therefore "control") THAT ?

Are these, by any chance, the same prats that can treat many different types of cancer or split the atom.

[MRT]

So, according to the quote, humanity is not causing global warming. One less thing to worry about ...

[The_Corinthian]

The fact is, on things that REALLY matter, we "know" very little more than the Egyptians knew 4000 years ago.

I dunno, I hear the Egyptian Large Hadron Collider had problems from the off, and their space program was a complete shambles. I think we've come quite far.

[bindeweede]

I dunno, I hear the Egyptian Large Hadron Collider had problems from the off, and their space program was a complete shambles. I think we've come quite far.

Quite far, yes. Well, at least most of us don't think the sun is Apollo driving his chariot across the sky. But you never know on these medium/psychic forums. (yes I know that was the Greeks, but......)

And no cure yet for the common cold? But I get my flu jab in a couple of weeks, so that's something.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

This lady could have done with some of that modern scientific stuff:

http://www.egyptianmyths.net/djedmum.htm

But then, perhaps dealing with dental abscesses and consequent blood-poisoning doesn't " really matter".

[bindeweede]

This lady could have done with some of that modern scientific stuff:

http://www.egyptianmyths.net/djedmum.htm

But then, perhaps dealing with dental abscesses and consequent blood-poisoning doesn't " really matter".

I wonder what people would choose as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. Antibiotics? MRI/CT scanners? Anti cancer/HIV drugs?

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

I wonder what people would choose as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. Antibiotics? MRI/CT scanners? Anti cancer/HIV drugs?

It's not my area of expertise by any means, but I've heard people say the whole antibiotic/bacteria probably did more for medicine than any other discovery or area of research.

[Zaira]

She seems a bit lost to me. Maybe depressed. People who are depressed often become over sensitive to newspaper stories.

"(Just been reading today's paper - yet more gratuitous murders - what the hell are things coming to ?"

Just an observation.

[Mongrel]

It's not my area of expertise by any means, but I've heard people say the whole antibiotic/bacteria probably did more for medicine than any other discovery or area of research.

BMJ has Sanitation first (since 1840) with Antibiotics a close second. (Source)
After all an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

[Cuddles]

I wonder what people would choose as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. Antibiotics? MRI/CT scanners? Anti cancer/HIV drugs?

That's actually an interesting question. As Mongrel says, the biggest advances overall are usually said to be sanitation and antibiotics, but they are both 19th century discoveries, as was anaesthesia and vaccination is even older. According to that BMJ article, that would put the discover of the structure of DNA as the greatest 20th century advance. However, I'm not sure I agree with this. Although it's an interesting discovery and will almost certainly lead to big advances, it hasn't actually contributed that much to medicine yet. Considering how much medicine has advanced in the last century, it's actually quite surprising how few big changes there have been, it seems to have mostly been many incremental changes and is hard to pick out any individual thing that made a big difference by itself.

[Matt]

I was going to suggest x rays but I see that in 1895 its discovery just creeps under the bar as a 19th Century innovation. Nobel prize in 1901 though.

So intead I'm going to say solid state electronics.

[Mongrel]

Considering how much medicine has advanced in the last century, it's actually quite surprising how few big changes there have been, it seems to have mostly been many incremental changes and is hard to pick out any individual thing that made a big difference by itself.

I think part of the problem is that we're not specialist enough to be aware of the large breakthroughs - we generally only see the end result. Gene sequencing has allowed us to create new and better techniques in antibiotic production and oncology, for instance, that leads to better targeted treatments. We will only see this if we seek out the journals or are unlucky enough to have need of these new techniques, techniques which have greatly increased the long term survival chances of patients in the case of cancers.