Word: human
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Most of this numbering is useful, and a good deal of it is indispensable. In any event, the world could hardly have wound up otherwise. Human beings began counting and "falling under the spell of numbers," in H.G. Wells' words, well before they could write. Long ago, the entire species was like some modern aboriginal peoples (the Damara and some Hottentots in Africa, for example) who possess words only for numbers up to three, every larger quantity being simply expressed as "many." A fascination with the multiplicity of things, together with a quenchless scientific yen, pushed the main body...
...trouble is that with everything on earth (and off, too) being quantified, micro and macro, the world is becoming woefully littered with numbers that defy useful comprehension. Biology, for example, estimates that the human brain contains some 1 trillion cells. But can any imagination get a practical hold on such a quantity? It is easy to picture the symbolic numerals: 1,000,000,000,000. Still, who can comprehend that many individual units of anything at one time? The number teases, dazzles the mind and even dizzies it, but that does not add up to understanding. Biology ought to find...
...human craving for numbers tells a good deal about man kind. It is both sign and cause of man's long trek from the days of one, two, three, many. It can be taken as a symptom of exuberant joy in the quantity and multiplicity of things. Still, the dizzy acceptance of those truly incomprehensible figures might also be construed as a vicarious variation of the old Faustian game: the yearning to know the unknowable...
...game has not cost the species its unquantifiable soul. Enough of that remains to nurture widespread excitement over, let us say, a World Series. A googol may not tell us much about where we stand today, but even Edward Kasner would have appreciated the true human relevance of 4-3 Pirates
...Carter's human rights policy "did not contribute at all" to the South Korean perception of ebbing U.S. support, Reischauer said. Carter "flubbed" his human rights policy in both South Korea and the Philippines by "doing nothing," he said, explaining that by visiting Park, Carter gave him a sign of approval which made all previous scolding meaningless...