more h.g. wells and less george orwell: can science save us from dystopia?

In the amazing discoveries and innovations of contemporary science-for example, only 2017 bring the editing of human embryonic genes, the location of the eighth continent under the ocean and the ability to re-use the spaceship rocket booster-it is easy to forget that the ability of science to save humanity is being debated. Seventy-
The best two five years ago.
Famous literary figures of the 20 th centuryG.
Wells and George Orwell had a warm exchange on the issue.
Wells, one of the founders of science fiction, believes in the potential of science.
On the other hand, Orwell is skeptical about science, pointing out the limitations of science as a guide to human affairs.
Although Wells and Orwell had debates in the Nazi era, many of their arguments have today been echoed in contemporary debates on science and policy.
In 2013, for example, biologist Richard Dawkins demonstrated confidence in science in these terms: \"science works. Planes fly. Cars drive.
Computer computing.
If you base medicine on science, you can heal people.
If you build the design of the aircraft on a scientific basis, they will fly. It works….
On the other hand, the famous argument of Nobel Prize winner Peter Medawar is that science cannot answer many important questions, for example, \"What is the purpose of life\" and \"What should scientific knowledge be used\" face challenges such as climate change and provide food to 2 billion of people who lack reliable sources of food, it may be natural to see science as the only hope of mankind.
But expecting from science what it cannot provide is as dangerous as not acknowledging its great potential.
Herbert George Wells was born in Kent, England, in 1866.
After an accident in his childhood left him in bed, he discovered his love for reading.
He studied and taught science under the guidance of biologist Thomas hehux Li and eventually earned a degree in biology.
To supplement his income, he published his first book, Time Machine, in 1895 as a freelance journalist.
Today, Wells, who died in 1946, is the most famous science fiction writer.
His most outstanding works include the Island of Dr. Morro, the invisible man, and the Battle of the world.
However, in his own time, Wells is more famous for being a public intellectual who has a progressive political outlook and high expectations for science.
Wells predicted many landmarks on the 20 th.
Scientific advances in the century, including aircraft, space travel and atomic bombs.
In discovery of the future, he lamented \"the dazzling power of the past is in our minds\" and believed that educators should replace classics with science, when they predict the phase of the moon, they produce leaders who can predict history.
Wells\'s passion for science is of political significance.
Thinking about himself in his novel
Wells believes that the greatest hope for mankind is to establish a single world government supervised by scientists and engineers.
He believes that human beings need to put aside religion and nationalism and believe in the power of rational experts trained in science.
Orwell: Forty years after Wells, George Orwell was skeptical about utopian impulses, born in 1903 in the hands of a British civil servant in India.
He grew up in England and was a sick child, but he liked writing since he was a child.
During his public studies at Eaton, he lacked the resources to continue his studies and worked as a police officer in Myanmar for five years.
After returning to England, he began his career as a journalist.
His work explores themes such as the life of the working poor and the dark side of colonialism, and also produces excellent literary criticism.
Orwell published two of his most famous works, Animal Farm and 1980 --Four.
Orwell is now recognized as one of the greatest writers of the 20 th century.
The word Orwellian has become a language describing the use of surveillance, misinformation, and propaganda to manipulate the totalitarian government of public understanding.
Orwell also introduced terms such as dual thinking, thought police and big brother.
Orwell is not as ambitious as Wells for mankind.
In reflecting on the impulse of Utopia, he wrote in why the Socialist does not believe in pleasure that the creator of utopia is similar to the \"person with toothache\", and therefore, I think that happiness lies in no toothache.
Whoever tries to imagine perfection will find his emptiness.
\"Science is not enough, Orwell is not shy about criticizing his friend Wells\'s scientific and political views.
In what is science, he describes Wells\' enthusiasm for science education as wrong, partly because it is based on such a hypothesis, that is, young people should accept more about radioactivity or not how to \"think more accurately \".
Orwell also rejected Wells\'s view that scientific training makes a person smarter about the methods of all subjects than those who lack scientific training.
Orwell believes that this widely held view naturally leads to the assumption that the world will become better if \"scientists control the world\", a concept he flatly rejects.
Orwell pointed out that the German scientific community has very little resistance to Hitler and has cultivated a large number of talented people to study synthetic oil, rockets and atomic bombs.
Orwell wrote: \"Without them, the German war machine will never be built.
To make matters worse, he believes, many of these scientists have swallowed \"monsters of race Science \".
Orwell believes that science education should not focus on specific disciplines such as physics, chemistry and biology, in other words, it should not focus on facts.
Instead, it should focus on the implantation of \"rational, skeptical, and experimental thinking habits \".
We should keep in mind that \"scientists themselves will benefit from a little education in the field of\" history, literature, or art \", not just by educating the masses scientifically.
Orwell is more critical of the role of science in politics.
In Wells, Hitler, and the country of the world, Orwell sees the establishment of a single world government as a hopeless utopia, much of it is because \"none of the five major military powers would have thought of giving in to such a thing.
Although wise people have held such views for decades, they \"have no power and no will to sacrifice themselves \".
Instead of condemning nationalism, Orwell praised it at least to some extent: \"What has made Britain stand firm in the past year ? \" Deep-rooted British feeling
Orwell wrote that the nation that says they are superior to foreigners is the energy that really shapes the world, derived from \"the intellectual\'s mechanically speaking of this emotion as out of place.
\"The Promise and limitations of science: This debate continues the contrast between these two 20-century eminent figures --
Century literature should not be overdrawn.
While advocating science, Wells also realized that scientific progress will also lead to human suffering.
He foresaw the development of the atomic bomb\'s great military destructive power, as well as the creation of technologies that undermine privacy.
Orwell admitted that without scientific research and technological innovation, Britain would not be able to compare with Germany\'s rapidly growing military power.
He did not hesitate to think that his compatriots should resume using shovels and pitchforks as weapons of war, and he called on adult men to have and know how to use rifles.
However, Wells and Orwell\'s view of the potential of science is ultimately in sharp contrast.
As Wells has seen, scientific habits of thinking are needed to rationalize the world political order.
In contrast, for Orwell, the purely scientific way of thinking makes human beings vulnerable to deception and manipulation, sowing the seeds of totalitarian.
There is a lot of hope for science, but the true point of view also emphasizes the limitations of science.