"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything..." (Richard Feynman)
My group is collaborating with ICRISAT and the Indian Institute of Technology in the AGROPEDIA Indica project. My colleague Margherita Sini and I were invited to participate in the "Rice Workshop" of the project. I gave a keynote in the opening session which is attached,
I am participating today in a meeting of the stakeholders in the Initiative for International Information Systems in Agricultural Science and Technology.
My friend Gerhard Stamer (Reflex- Verein fuer praktische Philosophie (https://www.stamer-reflex.de) is organizing a Symposion on Philosophy and Science. As he invited me to participate in this event I had to write a short CV and some lines. Here is the text
The description of the Dharavi slum in the Economist reminded me the Book Shantaram from which I learned the first time that these big slums are not these places of pure despair but human communities of a tremendous complexicity.
And I like Marxists of the type of Mr. Korde!!!!!
"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything..."
Richard Feynman (Theoretical Physicist)
"To be clear-headed rather than confused; lucid rather than obscure; rational rather than otherwise; and to be neither more, nor less, sure of things than is justifiable by argument or evidence. That is worth trying for."
Craig Venter might be a "maverick scientist" and I do not agree with the attempts to patent biological organisms. Nevertheless I agree very much with the positions he takes in the Dimbleby Lecture, blaming the western societies for having lost their enthusiasm for science and for not understanding that science will be the key lever to tackle the problems of the world
"As venture capitalist John Doerr once remarked to me 'You talk to the leadership in China and they are all engineers, and they get what is going on immediately. The Americans don't, because they are all lawyers'. Added Bill Gates: ' The Chinese have risk taking down, hard work down, education, and when you meet with Chinese politicians, they are all scientists and engineers. You can have a numeric discussion with them - --"
The attached article from "The Spiegel" is interesting. If the facts and numbers are true (and the Spiegel should not dare to invent such stories), then we have another good piece how the link between science and human progress has been attacked by a certain cultural tendency of the left in the last decades.
