Like Hawking says:
The 66-year-old British cosmologist, who suffers from ALS and must speak through a mechanical device, believes "if the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before."
Hawking compared people who don't want to spend money on human space exploration to those who opposed the journey of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
He also believes there is other life in the universe, but not any likely to give you any real competition in a "Jeopardy!" match: "Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," he then quickly added: "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth." Hard to argue with that.
Comments
Intelligence is so fleeting.
The brain is the largest consumer in the body's energy budget, and it doesn't take much for us to lose brain cells. Bill Clinton used to be a brilliant politician. These days, he is competing with Dubya for the Olympic Babbling Fool Team, including an incident on Public Broadcasting station WHYY in Philadelphia yesterday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxsrGUTcEUc
It may be due to his bypass surgery. That's fairly frequent.
http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2008other/080412clinton.htm
But it need not require advanced age, nor surgery. I think I developed senile dementia when I was 23....
Harl:
That depends on what part of Philly you're from....
;)
B.G.
(formerly of the "great" Northeast)