Word: bushed
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Vannevar Bush criticizes the excessive faith some laymen have in science and scientists [May 7], yet insists that man must have some faith. Science has so changed our lives that some veneration is not surprising. It has provided concrete changes instead of abstract impossibilities. Because people were taught that only prayer could alleviate their lot, and that blessings demanded enthusiastic thanks, they now bestow this on the scientific community. Dr. Bush need not fear that the problem will be with us for long: we are becoming blase already...
Mechanical World. All this, says Bush, who is recognized as the father of the modern analogue computer, is a crass misconception. In the current issue of FORTUNE, Bush explains that so exaggerated a faith in the powers of science is a residue of a naive 18th century belief in absolute "laws of na ture, based on observation and measurement." In this view, man himself is "merely an automaton, his fancied choice of acts an illusion," and the universe a great mechanical contraption ticking away according to a "neat set of equations." Thus, by observation, man "would be able to understand...
...matter of simple fact, says Dr. Bush, "science never proves anything in an absolute sense. It accumulates data by observation and measurement. From an assemblage of such data the scientist constructs a hypothesis, a formula that expresses the relationships he finds." As soon as further observation shows that the working hypothesis is faulty, it is replaced by another which seems more nearly correct. "Fortunately, scientific endeavor does not have to be perfect to yield results. The magnificent structure of dynamics was based on a differential calculus that was, logically, full of holes." Kepler's laws explaining planetary motion were...
...Wonderful Why. Science has gone far toward delineating the probable nature of the universe. It has even pried into the mechanism by which the human brain thinks. But beyond this, says Bush, science cannot go. It offers no proof, "it does not even produce evidence," on the two vital realities of man's being, his free will and his consciousness. Thus those "who follow science blindly come to a barrier beyond which they cannot see." They end "where they began, except that the framework, the background, against which they ponder is far more elaborate, far more probable than...
Science, when understood properly, makes man humble in his ignorance and smallness. Dr. Bush concludes that man will "follow science where it leads, but not where it cannot lead. And, with a pause, he will admit a faith...