Professor Freeman Dyon writes tellingly in the New York Review of Books recently (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370) as to biology being now “more important than physics, as measured by its economic consequences, by its ethical implications, or by its effect on human welfare”. He goes on to suggest that a bio-technological revolution will not be fully successful until it becomes democratised and de-centralised ( as with the IT revolution).
As an aside, I remember as a child being struck by some dialogue in an early Dr Who Episode . The Doctor asks of a group of golden eyed alien visitors landing in a rather odd space vehicle, how they constructed their space ship. “We did not build our ship”, they reply “We grew it”. The implication being that a highly advanced civilisation might eventually forsake the crudities of manufacturing for advanced forms of bio-culture.
To return to Professor Dyson’s theme, if the issues are to concern the living world, and if the audience to be communicated to should constitute … well, everyone, what might be the crucial role of those highly attended and democratic sites strung all across the developed and developing world, that are our progressive zoos and botanic gardens…?
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August 18, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Professor Dyson kindly sent me this message
Thank you for quoting me accurately. As a frequent visitor at zoos with a large number of grandchildren, I benefit greatly from your
activities.
Yours sincerely,
Freeman Dyson.