Comments on: The Exquisite Balance

By: Gus Spoon

Gus Spoon — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:27:47 +0000

Perfectly useless study what can you do with the information once acquired?

A better one would be the cost effectiveness,usefulness and likely hood of discovery with SETI study itself!

By: Neil McCabe

Neil McCabe — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:10:06 +0000

I believe this comes from Dr Shermers book, ‘Borderlands of Science’, which is my personal favorite of his works, although I have not as of yet read them all. (‘Science Friction’ is in the mail currently)
Fascinating study and data of course but my question on this is-if all parents were to conscientiously know this information-would they and should they raise their children differently? Would/should we as parents want to try and modify our children’s behavior based on whether they had certain tendency’s being indeed first or latter born? Why should we care? Are these individual human traits good or bad or just different?

By: Jocelyn Mandryk

Jocelyn Mandryk — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:32:16 +0000

I very much enjoyed reading this review and feel it to be a topic that is highly relevant in modern society.

The pace of so-called “progress” and change proceeds at a velocity, which even those perpetrating it, would have difficulty keeping up. Thus, a genetically predetermined inclination toward either tradition or change would seem apparent in everyday life, where technology, for example, is constantly moving forward. There are those who resist and those who jump quickly on-board. In Sagan’s view, this would be something that our individual biology could partially explain.

In light of this, I agree with Michael Shermer that science can then serve as an important filter between “sense and nonsense” as he puts it, however I am also curious about how science could or would inform religion when it comes to ITS tradition and change.

Within many religions there are denominations who would refer to themselves as “orthodox” “reformed” and dare I say it, “fundamentalist.” These labels are obviously indicative of a preference for either tradition or change. Therefore, my curiosity is two-fold:

To what degree, if any, does this predetermined tendency towards tradition over change (or visa-versa) feed into a religious group’s orthodoxy or reformation? In other words, does Sagan’s dichotomy of tradition vs change explain in part the change ( or lack there-of ) of some religions? Judaism is, for example, a religion that might warrant such a question.

Secondly, is there any place for science to intervene and make sense of it all being that the two are all too often fundamentally opposed?

Big questions, but the article got me thinking. Thanks.