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羅伯特‧海萊恩（Robert Heinlein）在他幾本小說裏指出了文明滅亡前的一些「警訊」。最近觀察社會上各種古怪普遍現象，突發奇想，特撰此文，拿出幾點較重要的來對照一番，分析看看台灣這個「文明」是否已經到了癌症末期。

我之前在【科學雜想】一篇提到：

現在科學昌明嗎？像現在這種一打開yahoo就有一堆算命的東東跑出來，一堆人一窩風求名牌買彩券，迷信氣功星相玄學的世界，根本不能算是科學昌明。充其量只能說是科技發達吧。

這是一個極為普遍的現象，似乎一百年來的科學教育完全無法改變大眾的宇宙觀，科技的發展與普遍大眾的思維觀念完全無法同步。用電腦算紫微斗數之類的就是一個例子，有如巫師手持碳纖維法杖，身穿科弗勒盔甲，在一萬公尺高空的超音速客機裡大跳乞雨舞 ……（繼續閱讀）

“There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.”

- Dr. Russell to his son, Clifford, in “Have Space Suit, Will Travel” by Robert A. Heinlein

This quotation from one of his novels pretty much sums up Robert Heinlein’s philosophy towards life. Actually, I am quite jealous of Clifford, and why I didn’t have a father like his in my youth to dish out cool admonitions disguised as clever one-liner adages is not something I wish to dwell upon. Well, dad is really okay; he’s just not the wisdom-dispenser type. In any case, I still had the Great Robert Heinlein, and he sure didn’t have a shortage of these little gems of wisdom. Here’s another one ……(read more)

…Well, that’s the end of the film. Now, here’s the meaning of life…Well, it’s nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations, and, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy…

- Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life”

A bacteria or a dog goes about its daily (or whatever passes for a day-cycle for a bacteria) business of searching for sustenance, ingesting them, and eliminating the resultant wastes (in the dog’s case occasionally re-ingesting them again ……(read more)

Einstein once said “Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind.” (”Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium”, 1941) This particular quote has been used and abused on countless occasions by various people to supposedly illustrate why Einstein thought religion (and hence organized religion, hence God, their God) is important, leading to various arguments such as “Science is useless without God”, or the timeless “Science only answers How; Religion answers Why.”

The fact is that Einstein was not talking about any organized religion; he was really talking about a spiritual awe of the universe, and a sort of higher sense of purpose (hence the “lame” bit). He also said at various times that he did not believe in a Christian God or in an organized religion. In any case, despite his achievements, Einstein really was just a man with his own beliefs and philosophies ……(read more)