Do You like book The Ascent Of Man (1976)?
الكتاب عندي 257 صفحة فقط .. بعد أن انتهيت وذهلت أستطيع أن أقول أنه نسخة أصغر فلسفياً وشمولاً لكنها أمتع أدبياً من كتاب كيف تغير العالم لجيمس بيرك .. عرض المؤلف بتسلسل ذكي خطوات ارتقاء الإنسان منذ أصوله الأقل بيولوجياً حتى عصره هو .. عصر ثورة العلم وإنجازاته .. مر على مستعمرات الصيد وحضارات كانت عامرة كالإنكا والإغريق عرّج على ديار الإسلام .. ثم عصر النهضة تناول قفزاته المذهلة بتركيز أكثر. كان ممتعاً فعلاً حس الكاتب العلمي أولاً ثم الأدبي والفلسفي مزج باقتدار .. في النهاية توصل إلى ذات النتيجة "من بين أهداف العلوم الفيزيقية تقديم صورة دقيقة للعالم المادي .. ومن بين منجزات الفيزيقيا في القرن العشرين إثبات أن هذا الهدف لا يمكن تحقيقه" في هذا تعرفت على قصص العلماء خلف الكواليس الإنسانية والمشبعة بالحس والتي لم تكن لتظهر مع جمود منجزاتهم وتجردها .
—Ahlam al-jurdi
"It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken."I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people."— The Ascent of Man
—Joshua Nomen-Mutatio
Writing is a revitalizing experience. It changes your mind, and it turns your body into a magical soul. Although I don’t believe in spiritualisms, I am truly confident that the human condition is perpetuated by our own behaviours. In the end, it isn’t really important the way we lived, but why we lived. Did we populate the Earth to reproduce and eat, like 99 percent of all other species? Or were we born in order to shift the perspective of our universe? By reading the immensely significant writings of Charles Bronowsky, my answers got immediately answered. The ascent of man is of cultural complexity. Biology is not important in order to make the human being understand his role in perpetuating the knowledge he is responsible for transmitting, generation after generation. What matters here is the actions that the same homo sapiens sapiens has been doing in the last 12000 YEARS. Although the modern human has been around for half a million years, it seems that we’ve only started leaving our mark very recently. So recently, in fact, the first real evidence of activity dates back to 30000 years ago: on the caves we find portraits, art. Bronowsky tells us about the necessity of man to constantly be on the move. And that was the fundamentally main problem with Men: in order to develop a cultural body of work, we need to settle down. Most nomad cultures nowadays struggle to develop any scientific and artistic knowledge. They consist solemnly of hunters and gatherers. Agriculture: that’s the keyword. Why did it took us so long to understand that seeds and water make things appear from the ground? It’s a complex question, and in order to answer it, one has to be informed that, at around 12000 BC, something extraordinary happened. The last ice age had come to an end, and the climate had allowed for extremely fertile grounds. The result: human beings were finally planting their own things. By doing that, one can settle down. However, in the beginning, they had to make the choice, and it was an hard one. In fact, the Old Testament deals with those dilemmas. Should we stay, or should we go?The Ascent of Man Bronowsky talks eloquently about is one of extreme courage and wit.
—Daniel Gonçalves