Dew, where and when? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

摘要

J. B. S. Haldane (1927) wrote in his essay Possible worlds 'I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy/ Since then we have had nuclear fission and the atomic bomb, ever-fasterelectronic computing and the internet, plate tectonics, almost all of our present knowledge of metabolic biochemistry, elucidation of the structure and role of DNA and all that has followed from k, space rockets and satellite communication and global positioning system (GPS) — and much, much more. And that leaves aside current thinking on cosmology. None of those things could have been predicted (except in the vaguest terms) in 1927 and none of them fundamentally violates the laws of thermodynamics. But there are many new ideas less momentous than these. We ought to think carefully before we dismiss concepts which may be new to us, even if they seem contrary to our preconceptions. I admit I was sceptical when 1 first saw the title of the paper by Lakatos et al. in this issue of New Phytologist (pp. 245-253), but that changed as I read and thought about it.