6 ms·

It's near-to-impossible to quantify this, but again, "there's enough uncertainty to open up our minds". Thank you very much for your comment by the way, writing

• api 12y ago
  There's far too little bold speculation and question-asking these days. It wasn't always this way. When I go back and read eminent scientists from the 50s and 60s I am pleasantly shocked by their fearlessness. You can go further back too. Thomas Edison built a machine to experiment with electromagnetic communication with the dead. Silly? Perhaps. But I see that as evidence of a questioning and a questing mind that wasn't afraid to ask big crazy questions. No professional would dare anything like that today unless they were so independently wealthy they didn't need anyone else's support. We've turned into a bunch of careerist cowards who keep our heads down out of the conditioned fear that expressing anything "far out" might offend some bureaucracy or ideological group. The irony is that the 50s and 60s were far more buttoned-up when it came to cultural norms, dress codes, etc. We've liberalized in one way but gone hyper-conservative in another.