We know more subtle facts about life than I think we could possibly use. The Krebs cycle is certainly a funny reference on Pete & Pete, but it's not that meaningful to most humans. Why is it that humans want to know all the little hows and whys AND all the big hows and whys? My guess...an attempt to aleviate fear...an attempt to have control so we're not afraid. Thoughts?
2007-03-01 04:51:31 · 10 answers · asked by vehement_chemical 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Funny name, Cam.
2007-03-01 04:56:40 · update #1
It is natural and healthy for humans to be curious. And some other primates also love to explore new things.
Put a human baby in a playpen and see what he does. If he is a normal healthy kid he will go to the edges of what confines him. But if he is autistic he may just sit in the center, not exploring the edges but absorbed in himself.
The natural inclination of healthy human beings to explore the world to the limits, is what drives human progress. That's why it is good that we devote effort to sending probes into space.
That natural urge motivates us to question all assumptions. As Socrates taught us, the unexamined life is not worth living.
You will always have to deal with the shrunken people who have closed down their curiosity. They dwell in answers. But you always have the option to remain mentally alive and never give up your right to question things. Not just the easy questions. To question especially the beliefs it takes courage to question. Thomas Jefferson understood this. Bertrand Russell says: Examine your convictions one by one until you get to one to which your reaction is - Oh, I could not question that one. Now that one, he says, is the very one that calls for your most critical and skeptical questioning.
That's pushing the envelope. It's healthy and it's what makes us human at our best and our most alive. When we question everything we are being fully human. Yes, we do want to know.
2007-03-01 05:09:31 · answer #1 · answered by fra59e 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are several reasons. If you understand what a thing is composed of, you can better utilize it. We all use the Krebs cycle whether or not we know it. Knowing how acetyl-CoA can be directed through the cycle instead of being made into fat for storage is the basis for some weight control regimens. The statins that block cholesterol synthesis block the path by which acetyl-CoA forms into the precursor compound. We teach these things to many on the hope that the few will have the spark of insight that creates something useful to all.
2007-03-01 05:04:55 · answer #2 · answered by novangelis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, imagine you wake up one morning, but your not in your bed. Your outside, and there are all these people around you, and you've never met any of them before, and they are building something. Something really big. Would you not ask where you were? how you got here? what the people here are doing, and why they are doing it?
It's naturally human curiosity. We are here, and we don't know how or why, and chances are we will never know, but that doesn't stop us from asking. And from trying to understand. The reason people want to know about little things like the krebs cycle is because when we understand the little things, we can piece them together and try to get some sort of idea as to what the bigger picture is.
2007-03-01 04:59:35 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think it is because most people don't llike to have a void in their knowledge. They believe that it makes them weak. Some fill this void with information, some fill it with religion.
It could well be a fear of looking stupid that compells people to do this.
Information is not facts. Facts are not knowledge. Knowledge is not understanding. Filling your head with anything but understanding simply gives you a better class of ignorance. I'd rather know nothing than fill my head with ignorance.
This is not to say that I haven't thought about these things, but in no way will I assume understanding since I cannot have the complete picture.
2007-03-01 05:03:22 · answer #4 · answered by Dharma Nature 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It helps define us, it creates the tools with which we shape our future. We could have called it a day 10,000 years ago. We had fire and the wheel, our animal hide clothes kept us reasonably warm and we only got hunted by a handful of predators. But we kept moving forward, and we still will, because we'll never know the height or the limits, we keep breaking those we thought we had.
2007-03-01 04:59:26 · answer #5 · answered by jleslie4585 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As has been said in other ways, if we were all theists, the earth would still be flat, we would still treat schizophrenia with exorcism, and most importantly, there would be no electricity, refrigerators, antibiotics, Xbox 360, HDTV.
2007-03-01 05:01:32 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I strongly advise you to alter the wording of your question or modify it somehow. There are atheist scientists out there, many atheists believe in a philosophy of one stripe or another, and to imply atheists must be compelled to have faith (in what, you don't specify) is a bit judgemental.
2007-03-01 04:56:46 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe that it is part of our Natural Urge to understand Self, in the Universal Sense.
RM
2007-03-01 04:57:37 · answer #8 · answered by A.L.M. 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The ability to aquire, store, and coallate information is evolutionarily advantageous.
This is simply one more of those evolution-built predilections in our brains.
2007-03-01 04:56:39 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Being smarter makes your life better. It's how little things, like curing disease, happen.
2007-03-01 04:55:35 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋