Hi Ric, Yes, we are absolutely still friends!! ;-) But I will still be direct with my words... Don't be so hard on scientists and the sciences! We've made a lot more technological advancement than you piano folks over the past few centuries. Don't even START to deny that! ;-) Sure, we've taken a few falls in our ongoing marathon, but at least we're not toodling around the track with walkers. We've taken a couple dozen laps for every one y'all have knocked out. It is a misconception with many that we scientists know much more than we do (Hollywood style) and that we know little or nothing (popular media style). The truth lies somewhere inbetween, and to understand this, unfortunately, it is necessary to immerse yourself somewhat in the sciences. These misconceptions will persist as long as they can be exploited by the media for their entertainment value. The best analogy I can draw for you, to explain what we do and don't know, is to ask you if you know how your computer works. I mean, do you REALLY, REALLY know how a computer works? Do you understand every aspect of electron flow through semiconductor media, the organization of integrated circuits, the incorporation of those circuits into larger circuits, the hiearchy of control over those circuits, blah, blah, blah, right on up to the graphic user interface? I think I'm safe in saying that nobody on this planet knows *all* of this stuff. Indeed, the reason our more complicated operating systems don't work is that no single person has an adequate breadth of understanding of the OS environment to understand it from bottom to top. (Forget the hardware!) So am I safe in saying that you know nothing about computers and that indeed nobody else does? Is it safe to say that computers are a mystery -- that we turn them on, and they work somehow? End of story? Neurobiologists understand bits and pieces and even large chunks of the nervous system and are understanding more and more everyday. There are certain things that we know very well. There are other things that we have very good clues about. Still other matters are somewhat mysterious. And sometimes we are wrong about what we think we know, but over time, we learn better and move forward. We don't claim to be right about everything. Indeed, we know we are wrong about a lot of things. The trick is figuring out where we're wrong. But the search continues, daily, for where we have screwed up... because we constantly strive to get it right -- and we do. So you can sit in your armchair and chortle everytime we discover where we've been wrong. It's easy to laugh at others. Meanwhile, the scientists celebrate another advancement, the product of a lot of hard, honest work, having corrected for a misdirection and having paved the way to move forward more fruitfully. Now to fully appreciate what I've just said, think about the Wright brothers and Langley and Lilienthal -- the brilliant scientists who figured out how to fly -- the folks who the smug townsfolk would laugh at for their follies. After you've thought about this, please reread the previous paragraph to put it into proper context. (Go ahead! There's time.) To expand this metaphor, we are still, to this day, figuring out how to fly, and we have a lot of crash landings behind us. Each crash teaches us something, and we move forward. Within my lifetime, we'll have cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, MS, schizophrenia, spinal cord injury, brain injury, etc. A large number of folks will then marvel at the "miracle" of modern science, which is nothing more than a lot of hard, thankless grunt work, done in the face of public ridicule. Lives are dedicated to this pursuit, and some lives are even lost. But will they pause to thank the pioneers of these technologies? No, they'll be too busy laughing at the next generation of scientists. Just food for thought... Peace, Sarah
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC