Like nuclear power, genetic engineering is not a neutral technology. It is by its very nature too powerful for our present state o...f social and scientific development, no matter whose hands are controlling it. Just as we would say, especially after Chernobyl, that a nuclear power plant is just as dangerous in a socialist nation as it is in a capitalist one, so I would say the same thing for genetic engineering. It is inherently Eugenic in that it always requires someone to decide what is a good and a bad gene.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Women think that an engineer is a man in hip boots building a dam. They don't realize that 95 percent of engineering is done in a ...nice air-conditioned office.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the works of the better poets you get the sensation that they're not talking to people any more, or to some seraphical creature.... What they're doing is simply talking back to the language itself--as beauty, sensuality, wisdom, irony--those aspects of language of which the poet is a clear mirror. Poetry is not an art or a branch of art, it's something more. If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological, indeed genetic, goal. Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a "read," commits an anthropological crime, in the first place, against himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A child is born with the potential ability to learn Chinese or Swahili, play a kazoo, climb a tree, make a strudel or a birdhouse,... take pleasure in finding the coordinates of a star. Genetic inheritance determines a child's abilities and weaknesses. But those who raise a child call forth from that matrix the traits and talents they consider important.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mining today is an affair of mathematics, of finance, of the latest in engineering skill. Cautious men behind polished desks in Sa...n Francisco figure out in advance the amount of metal to a cubic yard, the number of yards washed a day, the cost of each operation. They have no need of grubstakes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In academic science, interdisciplinary work is productive and praised, but is relatively rare. Scientists don't need to cooperate ...to have their results fit together: they are all describing different parts of the same thing--nature--so in the long run, their results tend to come together into a single picture. Engineering, however, is different. Because it is more creative (it actually creates complex things), it demands more attention to teamwork. If the finished parts are going to work together, they must be developed by groups that share a common picture of what each part must accomplish. Engineers in different disciplines are forced to communicate; the challenge of management and team-building is to make that communication happen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original i...deas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Despite many assertions to the contrary, the brain is not "like a computer." Yes, the brain has many electrical connections, just ...like a computer. But at each point in a computer only a binary decision can be made--yes or no, on or off, 0 or 1. Each point in the brain, each brain cell, contains all the genetic information necessary to reproduce the entire organism. A brain cell is not a switch. It has a memory; it can be subtle. Each brain cell is like a computer. The brain is like a hundred billion computers all connected together. It is impossible to understand because it is too complex. As Emerson Pugh wrote, "If the human brain was so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We cannot think of a legitimate argument why ... whites and blacks need be affected by the knowledge that an aggregate difference ...in measured intelligence is genetic instead of environmental.... Given a chance, each clan ... will encounter the world with confidence in its own worth and, most importantly, will be unconcerned about comparing its accomplishments line-by-line with those of any other clan. This is wise ethnocentricism.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am a Wasp only in the genetic sense; the P does not quite apply. As an Episcopalian I am technically an Anglican Catholic, meani...ng that I have a real feel for theological dottiness untainted by deeper questions of religious belief. I have no religious beliefs to speak of, but I stand four-square with the Highs against the Lows on Latin and incense, and I will go to bat for transubstantiation even though it means nothing to me one way or the other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »