(December 24, 2013 at 12:02 am)Chas Wrote: You know that more than 40 years ago, they said "definitely within 20 years".I think the "20 years" this time is probably a time limit set by whoever is ponying up the $1.6 billion that the project is expected to cost. They don't seem confident that they'll complete the project in that time, given that:
Quote:The first phases of the project, which is expected to last about a decade, is meant to better understand the functions of the human brain. Next, the researchers are hoping to grasp how we learn, think, see and hear.They plan to spend the first 10+ years just learning more about how the brain works. Which I consider a great way to spend that money. My hope is that each of these projects helps us learn more about how our brains work, because that looks like a pretty vast research landscape that is still mostly unmapped.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
