No religion and an end to war: how thinkers see the future


Alok Jha, science correspondent
Monday January 1, 2007
The Guardian

People's fascination for religion and superstition will disappear within a few decades as television and the internet make it easier to get information, and scientists get closer to discovering a final theory of everything, leading thinkers argue today.

The web magazine Edge (www.edge.org) asked more than 150 scientists and intellectuals: "What are you optimistic about?" Answers included hope for an extended human life span, a bright future for autistic children, and an end to violent conflicts around the world.

Philosopher Daniel Denett believes that within 25 years religion will command little of the awe it seems to instil today. The spread of information through the internet and mobile phones will "gently, irresistibly, undermine the mindsets requisite for religious fanaticism and intolerance".

Biologist Richard Dawkins said that physicists would give religion another problem: a theory of everything that would complete Albert Einstein's dream of unifying the fundamental laws of physics. "This final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue death blow to religion and other juvenile superstitions."

Part of that final theory will be formulated by scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator at Cern in Geneva, which is to be switched on this year. It will smash protons together to help scientists understand what makes up the most fundamental bits of the universe.

Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University, highlighted the decline of violence: "Most people, sickened by the bloody history of the 20th century, find this claim incredible. Yet, as far as I know, every systematic attempt to document the prevalence of violence over centuries and millennia (and, for that matter, the past 50 years), particularly in the west, has shown the overall trend is downward."

John Horgan, of the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, was optimistic "that one day war - large-scale, organised group violence - will end once and for all".

This will also be the year that we get to grips with our genomes. George Church, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, believes we will learn "so much more about ourselves and how we interact with our environment and fellow humans".

Simon Baron-Cohen, a psychologist at Cambridge University, focused on autistic children, saying their outlook had never been better. "There is a remarkably good fit between the autistic mind and the digital age," he said. "Many develop an intuitive understanding of computers, in the same way other children develop an intuitive understanding of people."

Leo Chalupa, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Davis, predicted that, by the middle of this century, it would not be uncommon for people to lead active lives well beyond the age of 100. He added: "We will be able to regenerate parts of the brain that have been worn out. So better start thinking what you'll be doing with all those extra years."

100 respond for broken rectal thermometer
CARMEL, N.Y. (AP) - It was quite a New Year's Eve at the home of Richard Berger in Carmel - in Putnam County. Someone in the house broke a rectal thermometer and the family called 911 around 10:30 to report the small mercury spill.

Several dozen volunteers from the Carmel Fire Department responded to the house on Brookview Drive.

Fire Chief Darryl Johnson says mercury is a hazardous material that can cause stomach problems if inhaled.

Men wearing protective gear used wet sponges to clean up the puddle.

It was packaged and brought to the Carmel firehouse where the county health department will dispose of it today.

The Berger family was not hurt.

A MAN died after two ambulance crews could not be sent to his aid — because they were on EU-enforced lunch breaks.

The victim collapsed in a betting shop, five minutes from his local ambulance station.

But under the barmy European Working Time Directive, exposed by The Sun last month, crews couldn’t be disturbed.

A paramedic was sent in a car and realised the unnamed man was having a heart attack.

He dialled 999 but an ambulance did not arrive for half an hour.

By then, the patient had died on the floor in Edmonton, North London.

Last night London Ambulance Service chiefs ordered a full probe.

The EU rules — which have angered staff — mean crews in the capital can be called out only in the last ten minutes of their 30-minute breaks.

Otherwise, they are banned from helping, even if there is a road crash outside their building.

Other UK ambulance services have chosen to opt out of the rules.

A London spokesperson said last night: “We can confirm crews were on a rest break at the time.

“Our sympathies are with the patient’s family.”

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