SA Director
Issue No. 8 - December/ 2002/january
Your Cosmic Sense of Mission
Richard Neville gave an inspiring speech on Thursday 19th September at our last AICD Thought Leader Luncheon for 2002.
If it is true that the crucible of innovation has shifted from the arts to the sciences, where does that leave business? We’ll come to that. Even for a science-moron like me, it’s hard do deny that the bulk of today’s hot ticket art, literature, music and theatre is dreary and repetitive compared to the grandiose daring of anonymous boffins who interpose themselves between evolution and God. The artwork of a shark encased in formaldehyde is a trivial affair compared with the creation of Dolly and her descendents.
These days, scientists sound like mad artists. “I can’t wait for a Palm Top to be implanted in my brain”, a computer whizz recently told a conference in Minneapolis, “the techno human is here”. The leading expert on space food, who grows meat in a petri dish, derived from collagen and algae, depicts a future of vegetarians chomping chops with glee, as animals are not minced in the process. “Soon humans will have the sonar prowess of a bat”, thunders a geneticist from the Hilton podium, “the eyes of an eagle, the speed of a gazelle”.
Against all this, does the world really need another slim volume on the pain of adultery? Innovation is driven by human ingenuity, the bonus of creativity. Why is it that some epochs are stunningly creative – ancient...
