# Digest urth.v028.n072 *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 02 Nov 1999* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Kieran Mullen *02 Nov 1999, 13:44* >> -----Original Message----- >> From: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On >> Behalf Of Daniel Fusch >> >> OK, Jim, >> >> I have to disagree with this: >> >> The Scientific Method has NOT disappeared from Urth; it is simply that >> organized (academic) sciene has disappeared. > Daniel, I yield to your superior evidence. Indeed, I roll on my back and > stretch my neck before you, making piteous mewling sounds. > BTW, are there any "good scientists" in the saga? > Best, Hmmm... As a scientist myself, let me throw in a word or two. The "scientific method" may still exist after a fashion, but one critical aspect is missing: publication. By that I mean the communication with others of your work so that it can be criticized or checked. The writing of books is banned, so each scientist we see is off on their own. While this may seem a stupid point, I think that it is part of the major break between alchemy and real science. The alchemists tended to guard their secrets jealously. One possible group of scientists in the Seekers of Truth and Penetance. Theirs is an old and applied art, true, but I get the feeling that they have had to learn from experience and pass that knowledge on. (This argument is a bit weak, since most of their knowledge seems like lore.) I think that science is pretty absent because on Urth most discovery seems to be rediscovery - i.e. uncovering the wisdom of the Ancients. Everyone seems to be oppressed by how much was known in the past. Kieran Mullen Kieran Mullen email: kieran at ou.edu Dept. of Physics and Astronomy phone: (405) 325-3961 The University of Oklahoma FAX: (405) 325-7557 Norman, OK 73019, USA http://www.nhn.ou.edu/~kieran/ --- ### Redhaven1 *02 Nov 1999, 20:56 · follows Kieran Mullen* I'm sure that someone on the list must have remarked somewhere along the line how much Wolfe's concept of absorbing all a person's memories from one cell in their body resemble's Hebert's work in the Dune series with a ghola being cloned from one cell and still having all of the person's original memories. [Whoa, run on sentence there. . .] Anyway, which came first? Did Wolfe get the idea from Herbert's works or did Herbert develope the idea from Wolfe's? Also, is there any real scientific evidence that our cells can hold all of our memories, or is this probably pure science fiction? -Steve ---