scidata

If enough trees fall in a Carboniferous forest, we get oil in the present day. Oil and sound are both consequences of trees falling, it's just that oil still echoes after millions of years. These philosophical questions often dissolve when we stop trying to anthropomorphize nature. Trees, oil, sound, and nature just are - with or without us. Get over it.

Psychohistory based on formulae as in "Foundation" is very doubtful. However, computational psychohistory based on models and algorithms is more of a possibility.

Wolfram is giving away most stuff on the Raspberry Pi platform. The idea is to really kindle interest in the educational domain http://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/

jh65s

This is 1440's thinking. I know of very few scientifically literate people who think this way. IMHO the scientifically illiterate have diminishing real power.

Humanity is pretty tough and resourceful. We once dwindled to only a few thousand individuals and teetered on the brink of extinction. Now there are 7 billion of us and we are on the brink of populating the solar system. "We are at the very beginning of time for the human race." - Richard Feynman

Haskell is a really hard language to learn. However, it has the great benefit of showing just how stupid and obtuse other languages are.