The Benford & Rose Essays, available at Amazon Shorts.
New Methuselahs : Can We Cheat Death Long Enough to Live Forever?
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
We may now begin to pry humanity loose from the vise of aging. What are the realistic prospects for postponing aging, if not obliterating it? Some recent biotech promises to understand and impede aging, and we can accelerate this work. But some find this undesirable, if not immoral. We review the debate from a variety of angles: scientific, ethical, and literary. There is real hope.
Click here to buy "New Methuselahs" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Motes in God's Eye : The Deformities of American Science
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Contemporary American science is one of the greatest cultural achievements in history. Worldwide, it is the grandest intellectual endeavor of our time. But it has its flaws, its motes that obscure its vision. Worst of these is the increasingly ferocious and wasteful race for grant funding. All too often, conformity, fashion, and cowardice dominate the process. Good scientists squander long hours writing proposals that have about a 10% chance of getting accepted. In 1950, the odds were about 70%. This drives science toward short term thinking, shortening our horizons and corrupting our thinking. We must change our outworn mechanisms, and soon.
Click here to buy "Motes in God's Eye" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Gods and Science : Three Theologies for Modern Times
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Science finds no sign of an omnipotent being that creates planets but also can make your heart disease go away. But there are other kinds of god that science can countenance. The most popular of these is God as the Universal Laws, which we call God the Physicist. Einstein often referred to this God, in discussing the structure of physical theory. Another god allowed by science is a Neurobiological God, like a Freudian superego writ large. We develop both possibilities. The choice among them and the traditional theistic God is up to the reader. Perhaps one can even blend them.
Click here to buy "Gods and Science" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
We Can Build You : Transplantation, Stem Cells, and the Future of Our Bodies
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Stem cells offer the prospect of large-scale repair of damaged or decrepit human bodies. If we can use the patient's own genetic information in creating the therapeutic stem cells, we could replace tissues without suppressing our bodies' immune response. Mastering such technology, we could keep aging or acutely diseased patients alive for long times. Our bodies might become sewn together contraptions, like Frankenstein's monster-a horrifying prospect to some respects, liberating to others. We offer few firm recommendations, but we do tour the rocky terrain surrounding this issue.
Click here to buy "We Can Build You" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
High Frontier : A Real Future for Space
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
This is the first of a series of essays on how proper use of space can ensure our future for centuries, maybe millinnea. It outlines several ideas that we'll treat in detail later, and lingers a bit over one of them. Will we have a future in space? Only if we think large. Opening up the solar system probably demands huge spacecraft driven by spectacular engines. The true long term goal of civilization should be the uplifting of all humanity to a decent standard of living. The payoff will be vast, and it demands the use of space-or else we all face long term poverty, both material and spiritual.
Click here to buy "High Frontier" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Sex and the Internet : HOW BENFORD CORRUPTED THE WORLD WIDE WEB
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
In the late 1960s, one of us (GB) noticed that the early DARPANet had a biological analogy. This led him to create and write about the first computer virus. Nobody paid much attention, until viruses and other pernicious forms became a major problem and defending against them an industry. They tell us something sad about our species. This analogy still holds, and can still make predictions.
Click here to buy "Sex and the Internet" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Global warming can't be plausibly solved by minor cutbacks like those promised by the Kyoto Accords. We are ignoring two methods that we can deploy fairly quickly, and even cheaply. First, start storing carbon away, so it can't return to our air as carbon dioxide. The best place to put it is probably in the deep oceans. Second, start reflecting more sunlight back into space-nature's historical solution. We can do this by lightening our roofs and highways, right now. Soon we can produce clouds over the oceans (which absorb most of the sunlight). These are obvious and so far ignored. We do so at our peril.
Click here to buy "Real Cool World : New Ways To Stop Global Warming" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
How apt is the common analogy between America and Rome? Certainly some traits, like faltering political will and neglect of social basics, seem to be similar. But as Rome failed at its frontiers, so has the USA neglected and cynically managed its space program. For 30 years it has done little at great cost. Fixing NASA gives clues to how we might save America.
Click here to buy "NASA and the Decline of America" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Cryonics companies suspend their dead "patients" in liquid nitrogen. Bringing them back is not obviously impossible, but research to make it happen will probably take half a century or more. This is a long shot chance to see the future, utterly American. Scientific issues might be overcome, but social impediments are large, too. . At least cryonics makes it possible for you to die with some hope, however small.
Click here to buy "Back From The Freezer?" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
The problem with the debate about natural selection versus Intelligent Design is that neither is visible. If we were visited by a supremely powerful being-say, like an smart Oprah Winfrey with command over Earth and all its creatures, that claimed to have made us, in a voice rolling from the sky--then ID would be obviously true. Even if such beings visit us from outer space every few hundred thousand years or so, they might have left some debris behind, perhaps in orbit around Earth. We haven't found any. But whatever our maker(s) is (are), they aren't immediately visible. Evolution by natural selection also does not announce its working for all to see. But it is one of the most powerful of all scientific theories, with a wide range of indirect evidence supporting it. Its main difficulty is that it is not warm or cuddly, unlike God or Oprah.
Click here to buy "Our Invisible Maker" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
New Methuselahs : Can We Cheat Death Long Enough to Live Forever?by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
We may now begin to pry humanity loose from the vise of aging. What are the realistic prospects for postponing aging, if not obliterating it? Some recent biotech promises to understand and impede aging, and we can accelerate this work. But some find this undesirable, if not immoral. We review the debate from a variety of angles: scientific, ethical, and literary. There is real hope.
Click here to buy "New Methuselahs" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Motes in God's Eye : The Deformities of American Scienceby Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Contemporary American science is one of the greatest cultural achievements in history. Worldwide, it is the grandest intellectual endeavor of our time. But it has its flaws, its motes that obscure its vision. Worst of these is the increasingly ferocious and wasteful race for grant funding. All too often, conformity, fashion, and cowardice dominate the process. Good scientists squander long hours writing proposals that have about a 10% chance of getting accepted. In 1950, the odds were about 70%. This drives science toward short term thinking, shortening our horizons and corrupting our thinking. We must change our outworn mechanisms, and soon.
Click here to buy "Motes in God's Eye" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Gods and Science : Three Theologies for Modern Timesby Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Science finds no sign of an omnipotent being that creates planets but also can make your heart disease go away. But there are other kinds of god that science can countenance. The most popular of these is God as the Universal Laws, which we call God the Physicist. Einstein often referred to this God, in discussing the structure of physical theory. Another god allowed by science is a Neurobiological God, like a Freudian superego writ large. We develop both possibilities. The choice among them and the traditional theistic God is up to the reader. Perhaps one can even blend them.
Click here to buy "Gods and Science" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
We Can Build You : Transplantation, Stem Cells, and the Future of Our Bodiesby Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Stem cells offer the prospect of large-scale repair of damaged or decrepit human bodies. If we can use the patient's own genetic information in creating the therapeutic stem cells, we could replace tissues without suppressing our bodies' immune response. Mastering such technology, we could keep aging or acutely diseased patients alive for long times. Our bodies might become sewn together contraptions, like Frankenstein's monster-a horrifying prospect to some respects, liberating to others. We offer few firm recommendations, but we do tour the rocky terrain surrounding this issue.
Click here to buy "We Can Build You" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
High Frontier : A Real Future for Spaceby Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
This is the first of a series of essays on how proper use of space can ensure our future for centuries, maybe millinnea. It outlines several ideas that we'll treat in detail later, and lingers a bit over one of them. Will we have a future in space? Only if we think large. Opening up the solar system probably demands huge spacecraft driven by spectacular engines. The true long term goal of civilization should be the uplifting of all humanity to a decent standard of living. The payoff will be vast, and it demands the use of space-or else we all face long term poverty, both material and spiritual.
Click here to buy "High Frontier" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Sex and the Internet : HOW BENFORD CORRUPTED THE WORLD WIDE WEBby Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
In the late 1960s, one of us (GB) noticed that the early DARPANet had a biological analogy. This led him to create and write about the first computer virus. Nobody paid much attention, until viruses and other pernicious forms became a major problem and defending against them an industry. They tell us something sad about our species. This analogy still holds, and can still make predictions.
Click here to buy "Sex and the Internet" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Real Cool World : NEW WAYS TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Global warming can't be plausibly solved by minor cutbacks like those promised by the Kyoto Accords. We are ignoring two methods that we can deploy fairly quickly, and even cheaply. First, start storing carbon away, so it can't return to our air as carbon dioxide. The best place to put it is probably in the deep oceans. Second, start reflecting more sunlight back into space-nature's historical solution. We can do this by lightening our roofs and highways, right now. Soon we can produce clouds over the oceans (which absorb most of the sunlight). These are obvious and so far ignored. We do so at our peril.
Click here to buy "Real Cool World : New Ways To Stop Global Warming" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
NASA and the Decline of America
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
How apt is the common analogy between America and Rome? Certainly some traits, like faltering political will and neglect of social basics, seem to be similar. But as Rome failed at its frontiers, so has the USA neglected and cynically managed its space program. For 30 years it has done little at great cost. Fixing NASA gives clues to how we might save America.
Click here to buy "NASA and the Decline of America" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Back From the Freezer?
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
Cryonics companies suspend their dead "patients" in liquid nitrogen. Bringing them back is not obviously impossible, but research to make it happen will probably take half a century or more. This is a long shot chance to see the future, utterly American. Scientific issues might be overcome, but social impediments are large, too. . At least cryonics makes it possible for you to die with some hope, however small.
Click here to buy "Back From The Freezer?" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
Our Invisible Maker
by Gregory Benford & Michael Rose
The problem with the debate about natural selection versus Intelligent Design is that neither is visible. If we were visited by a supremely powerful being-say, like an smart Oprah Winfrey with command over Earth and all its creatures, that claimed to have made us, in a voice rolling from the sky--then ID would be obviously true. Even if such beings visit us from outer space every few hundred thousand years or so, they might have left some debris behind, perhaps in orbit around Earth. We haven't found any. But whatever our maker(s) is (are), they aren't immediately visible. Evolution by natural selection also does not announce its working for all to see. But it is one of the most powerful of all scientific theories, with a wide range of indirect evidence supporting it. Its main difficulty is that it is not warm or cuddly, unlike God or Oprah.
Click here to buy "Our Invisible Maker" for $0.49 at Amazon Shorts.
