people are without jobs due to over zealous industrialists. even more are without food due to over zealous industrialists. so the solution is to turn plants into over zealous industrialists?

why not just start sustainable farms on a large scale to employ people and have them produce food that isn't the result of lab work, but rather of experiential growth and development?

i know i know, how radical.

...and where is science today?

Science as you are talking about it produces results to a point, and then that point is the one that needs to be crossed in order to ensure anything resembling progress, or further understanding of the natural world.

Imagine you're a newtonian spouting such drivel on the eve of the discovery of quantum mechanics. Such a manner of thinking is at least as glib as your crap metaphor.

The philosophy behind it is far more important than you are giving it credit for.

Surprising to me, honestly. Goethe's "philosophy of science" is about as pragmatic as one can be regarding such explorations, and attempts to meander away from the foibles of analytical reductionism.

I have a degree in the Philosophy of Science, and in my four years of study, Goethe was also conspicuously absent.

I know that in the eyes of his contemporaries, his discussions on the observation of nature were thought of as BS, mainly because it was so anti-newtonian that no one could think his ideas and methods were worthwhile ("science for poets" is a way it is often described).

However, I've found his work to be playfully spanning the gap between empiricism and intuition, and I feel that many would benefit from learning more about his writings on these matters.

how interesting: that a demand to maintain the efficacy of an object created by man must be framed as a ridiculous idea.

at the heart of it, seems like the guy just wants to maintain integrity of an idea.

" As someone else said, I'm surprised there's not more books on this topic."
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There are plenty of books on this 'subject'.

usually under the subject heading of social psychology...or, seeing the method of online community interactio, perhaps operant conditioning would be more appropriate :D

now everybody wins!

gives new meaning to "oh yea well I did attend the Harvard of the --insert region here--" :D