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scient
the fetal tissue research that may cure patients of Parkinson's disease; those
claiming an expertise in "scientific ethics" labor daily to stop the use of
biotechnologies designed to feed the starving; animal rights activists bomb
labs housing studies that could relieve the permanent impairments caused
by head injuries; and Afro American interest groups have succeeded in
virtually banning conclaves on new empirical approaches to violence.  In
many intellectual circles, even the concept of progress has been turned into a
dirty word.
Biologically-produced endorphins anesthetize a helpless rat to his pain
by disabling his senses.  Like endorphins, ignorance would help us feel
better...for a price.
Other countries have attempted the strategy of perceptual shutdown
and found it fatal.  One of them is China.  In 1405, China was geographically
enormous, militarily powerful and internally stable.  Her advanced ways put
the European world to shame.  China experienced unity while the European
countries, each a tiny fraction of the size of China, were squabbling like
children.  Her cities had amenities like specialty restaurants and sidewalk
snack vendors.115 Her citizens were blessed with immense iron, ceramics and
printing industries, cookbooks, encyclopedias, medical texts and widespread
education.116  Her government sponsored a massive--and
successful--program of agricultural research and development which had
just nearly doubled the country's production of rice.117  What's more, Chinese
technology was amazing.  Paddle-wheeled warships 360 feet long carrying
800 men moved up and down her major rivers.118  When her emperor
stepped into the rooms of his palace, automatically-operating doors and
window blinds opened before him.
The barbarians from the edge of the world, the Europeans, soon
arrived with signs that they were catching up.  These peculiar-looking people
from insignificant lands had solved problems of the calendar that diligent
Chinese sages found insoluble, possessed answers to astronomical enigmas
that totally baffled the Chinese, and displayed miraculous devices like
portable clocks.119  More ominously, though China's weapons specialists had
  ific advancement: for roughly twelve years, fundamentalists eliminated
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