QQC Part Four

This quote, I find is pretty funny. To think that the reason the study of geology became a well known and popular science because some of the elite class had a hobby. I also am left wondering if these men were hobby enthusiast and nothing more, how the heck did they conduct their fieldwork during the summer months? How did they know what to look for, how to record data correctly, or even what type of experiments to conduct. Mentioned before this was that the entrance fee so to speak was a hefty 15 shillings, so as to weed out the "who qualifications were merely cerebral." I find this very offensive. Many of science's advancements were made by people who did not necessarily have to means but instead the passion and intelligence to create the advancement. The fact that this pompous group would want to not have the chance with these intelligent people to help them with their 'hobby' astounds me.

QQC Part Three

"Once he inserted a bodkin-a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather-into his eye socket and rubbed it around "betwixt my eye and the bone as near to [the] backside of my eye as I could" just to see what would happen. What happened, miraculously, was nothing-at least nothing lasting."

I find this quote hilarious, amazing, and completely mad. Starting with 'mad' in the sense that Newton did this just to see what would happen, but it is also completely human because if no one did something "just to see what would happen" our race would not advance. Amazing because this man took the chance to go blind! To literally take the chance to never be able to write a formula straight again is aw inspiring. I do think it is a little hilarious because the notion that a man with Newton's reputation seemed to do this type of thing a lot, and as it is I see myself doing some of the same things. I have stared into the sun to see what happens, touched a flame, eaten things I probably should not have, but all for that very odd reason "to see what would happen". This quote does raise a question for me though, how far will someone go to "just see what would happen", and if someone does not go that far what will not be discovered because of it?