tisiwoota

Two recent breakthroughs in neurotechnology:

1. Sony files patent for a technology that modifies firing patterns in targeted areas of the brain to create artificial sensory experiences (eg, moving images, tastes, sounds, and scents: a la The Matrix).

2. Researchers manipulate fly brains by ‘remote control’, causing them (the flies, not the researchers) to jump and flap their wings in response to laser stimulation. What’s striking about this is that unlike with remote-controlled rats, the result was not achieved through training to re-wire synapses, but through genetic modification of neurons.

[And if this kind of technology makes you a bit paranoid about potential long-term implications for cognitive liberty, well, I’m sure everything will be just fine once you slip on your tin-foil mind-control deflector beanie cap for protection…]

The Guardian features a selection of responses from scientists to the question: “What is the one thing everyone should learn about science?”

My favorite response was from Matt Ridley, Founding chair of the International Centre for Life:

“Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries.

Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it. The myth that science gets rid of mysteries, started by the Romantic poets, was well nailed by Albert Einstein —whose thought experiments about relativity are far more otherworldly, elusive, thrilling, and baffling than anything dreamt up by poets.

Isaac Newton showed us the mysteries of deep space, Charles Darwin showed us the mysteries of deep time, and Francis Crick and James D Watson showed us the mysteries of deep encoding. To get rid of those insights would be to reduce the world’s stock of awe.”

…

Also important I think is the ideal espoused by Antony Hoare, a senior researcher at Microsoft Corporation:

“I would teach the world that scientists start by trying very hard to disprove what they hope is true. When they fail, they have a good reason for believing what they hope is true, and can even convince others of its truth. A scientist always acknowledges the possibility of error, and is less likely to be mistaken than one who always claims to be right.”

PS: The title of this post comes from a quote attributed to Galileo, meaning “and yet it moves”, in reference to earth orbiting the sun– supposedly a deathbed defense of scientific truth over ideology.

Another Galileo quote: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.”