Isaac Asimov

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In a 1979 interview conducted by NASA veteran and journalist Phil Konstantin for Southwest Airlines magazine, Isaac Asimov held forth on the odds of humans surviving on Earth and flourishing in space. An excerpt:

Southwest Airlines:

How about orbital space colonies? Do you see these facilities being built or is the government going to cut back on projects like this?

Isaac Asimov:

Well, now you’ve put your finger right on it. In order to have all of these wonderful things in space, we don’t have to wait for technology – we’ve got the technology, and we don’t have to wait for the know-how – we’ve got that too. All we need is the political go-ahead and the economic willingness to spend the money that is necessary. It is a little frustrating to think that if people concentrate on how much it is going to cost they will realize the great amount of profit they will get for their investment. Although they are reluctant to spend a few billions of dollars to get back an infinite quantity of money, the world doesn’t mind spending $400 billion every years on arms and armaments, never getting anything back from it except a chance to commit suicide.

Southwest Airlines:

Do you think that we will avoid a self-inflicted global catastrophe?

Isaac Asimov:

The chances don’t look so good, but they don’t look so black, either. The birth rate is going down over most of the world, and if it continues to go down, then perhaps we can bring a halt to the population explosion before it completely overwhelms us. There is always the danger of nuclear war, but we’ve kept away from it now for thirty-five years. And maybe we can keep on keeping away from it. We’ve been polluting and using up our energy, but I think more and more we are aware of the dangers of this. And perhaps, we will do something about it. To my way of thinking, the biggest obstacle to solving the problems we have, and we have some of the solutions, is that the world is dividing up into separate nations, all of which are more concerned over their own short-term interests than over the long-term survival of the human species. And as long as that is so, then I don’t think we will have a chance, because we will all go down the tube quarreling, so to speak.

Southwest Airlines:

Do you see this as the foreseeable future, or will we have enough sense to avoid this?

Isaac Asimov:

Well, I do see this tendency to draw back from the brink. In other words, we to tend to realize that we can’t afford to quarrel, the earth is too small for that, and the United States and the USSR do keep talking and now it looks as though the US and China are going to keep talking. I would like to see the Soviet Union and China have a detente, too. I would like to see initiative toward peace between Israel and Eygpt expanded to include the rest of the Middle East. All of these things are hopeful beginnings. The various detentes are hopeful beginnings, but they are only beginnings, and at the rate they are moving, we will never make it. So, we will have to go faster.•

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Technology Review has published “On Creativity,” a 1959 essay by Isaac Asimov that has never previously run anywhere. The opening: 

“How do people get new ideas?

Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the ‘creation’ of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.

One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method of generation is never clear even to the ‘generators’ themselves.

But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.

There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s ‘Essay on Population.’

Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).

Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.

Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a cross-connection.

That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be found.”

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The Robots Are Here” is an excellent, thought-provoking article by Tyler Cowen at Politico Magazine which considers what our progress with data and automation has wrought. If you’re not familiar with the George Mason economist’s work, this piece is a wonderful entry point. He begins by looking at the prescience of an Isaac Asimov story which predicted the intersection of deep data and the democratic process. An excerpt:

“Nearly 60 years after Asimov anticipated a decidedly dramatic intrusion of machines into our politics, we may not (yet) be offloading our democratic responsibilities to computers, but we are empowering them to reshape our economy and society in ways that could be just as profound. The rise of smart machines—technologies that encompass everything from artificial intelligence to industrial robots to the smartphones in our pockets—is changing how we live, work and play. Less acknowledged, perhaps, is what all this technological change portends: nothing short of a new political order. The productivity gains, the medical advances, the workplace reorganizations and the myriad other upheavals that will define the coming automation age will create new economic winners and losers; it will reorient our demographics; and undoubtedly, it will transform what we demand from our government.

The rise of the machines builds on deeper economic trends that are already roiling American society, including stagnant growth since 2001 and a greater openness to trade and foreign outsourcing. But it’s the rapid increase in machines’ ability to substitute for intelligent human labor that presages the greater disruption. We’re on the verge of having computer systems that understand the entirety of human ‘natural language,’ a problem that was considered a very tough one only a few years ago. We’re close to the point when we can fit the (articulable) knowledge of the entire world into the palm of our hands. Self-driving cars are making their way onto streets in California and Nevada. Whether you are a factory worker or an accountant, a waitress or a doctor, this is the wave that will lift you or dump you.”

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Below is the opening of Isaac Asimov’s classic NYT report about the 1964 New York World’s Fair. He was certainly right that we would continue to withdraw, but the palace of retreat was the inside of our heads and not an underground home. The excerpt:

The New York World’s Fair of 1964 is dedicated to “Peace Through Understanding.” Its glimpses of the world of tomorrow rule out thermonuclear warfare. And why not? If a thermonuclear war takes place, the future will not be worth discussing. So let the missiles slumber eternally on their pads and let us observe what may come in the nonatomized world of the future.

What is to come, through the fair’s eyes at least, is wonderful. The direction in which man is traveling is viewed with buoyant hope, nowhere more so than at the General Electric pavilion. There the audience whirls through four scenes, each populated by cheerful, lifelike dummies that move and talk with a facility that, inside of a minute and a half, convinces you they are alive.

The scenes, set in or about 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1960, show the advances of electrical appliances and the changes they are bringing to living. I enjoyed it hugely and only regretted that they had not carried the scenes into the future. What will life be like, say, in 2014 A.D., 50 years from now? What will the World’s Fair of 2014 be like?

I don’t know, but I can guess.

One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.

There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the ‘scenery’ by changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common.•

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Biologist E.O. Wilson, who watches his aunts ants have sex, just did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

__________________________

Question:

Would you agree with Isaac Asimov’s quote, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny…”? 

E.O. Wilson:

Asimov was a genius in science fiction with an amazingly wide-ranging imagination. However, I don’t recall that he made many original discoveries in science, if any. So, if this not too presumptuous, it maybe true that the first thing that passes the mind is: “Hmmm…there is something different here” but quickly the successful scientist learns and thinks enough to say, “a-ha! I think…”

__________________________

Question:

Mr. Wilson, what do you think about genetic engineering and its potential impact on biodiversity? 

E.O. Wilson:

A decade ago I made a special study of genetically modified organisms, including crops, and their potential impact on the environment. I don’t believe that what I concluded has changed a great deal. It is that while some risk occurs, it is not profound and it is over weighed by potential good.

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Question:

How devastating would the collapse of the bee population be to the world’s ecosystem?

E.O. Wilson:

Unless we solve the colony collapse syndrome and build up new stocks of honeybees, the result will be a severe loss to agriculture, costing as high as billions of dollars.

Question:

What is presumed to be behind the large losses? Pesticides? Climate change? Thanks for your answer.

E.O. Wilson:

A recent study conducted by a team of experts could find no primary cause of the collapse syndrome. The best they could conclude was that multiple causes are at work, including pesticides and inbreeding. Obviously there is an urgency to deeper studies of the problem.

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Question:

Ants are probably one of the most important invertebrate taxa ecologically, and they certainly deserve more recognition then they get. It is clear that ants are capable of colonizing disturbed environments more effectively than some other insect groups. Despite this talent for dealing with rough environments, do you believe that ant species richness/diversity is a particularly useful measure of forest/ecosystem health?

E.O. Wilson:

I believe ants are wonderful indicators of ecosystem health. There are so many species in most environments, as many 300 in some tropical rainforests, each with its own specialization and requirement of a healthy environment, that even just the presence or absence of a particular species tells us a great deal about whats happening to the local environment.•

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Ant-sploitation from 1977:

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Asimov and his blazer (wow!) interviewed by Bill Boggs in 1982. Have I ever mentioned that I have read almost no science fiction? ‘Tis true.

In 1984, Boggs welcomed Heller, who will always be remembered for Catch-22, but should also be remembered for Something Happened.

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The opening of “The Relativity of Wrong,” Isaac Asimov’s 1989 Skeptical Inquirer essay:

“I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so I read on.)

It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight.

I didn’t go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What’s more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see.

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern ‘knowledge’ is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. ‘If I am the wisest man,’ said Socrates, ‘it is because I alone know that I know nothing.’ the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

My answer to him was, ‘John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.’

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are absolute; that everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don’t think that’s so.”

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Still no explanation for the mutton chops.

From Goodreads.com: “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’

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“Once we have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries, where anyone can ask any question…everyone will enjoy learning.”

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From a 1977 radio interview for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s Quirks and Quarks program. (Thanks Treehugger.)

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Found Footage Festival serves up this 1988 TV spot for Isaac Asimov’s Robots VCR Mystery Game. According to Board Game Geek, the action was set in the 23rd century, as a detective attempted to solve the first murder in 100 years.

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