Our society is destined to fail unless and until we embrace a fundamental appreciation towards science. I think there is at least a superficial appreciation towards it as indicated by the probable event of one saying “Yes of course” in response to the question “Do you value science?”. However, there does not appear to be a fundamental appreciation towards it as indicated by a lack of demand by the general public of details in “scientific facts”, political debates, religious justification, legal justification, and a host of other categories. We as a society, simply put, have low standards of proof and low tolerance for details, and this may very well be our doom.
Carl Sagan alluded to this still-present and austere problem with our society:
(May 27th, 1996)
There are really three ways to fix this problem. The “easiest” way is the top-down approach. In this approach, the monstrous media conglomerates spontaneously decide to disseminate only goods that are enriched with science and rigorous, detail-based information. The second approach is the bottom-up approach, where we, the consumers, decide that we prefer the aforementioned goods over what we currently consume. And the third approach is a combination of these two.
The first two (and hence the third) arguably have a low probability of occurring, which is what makes this issue serious. Thus my ambition is to spread the word to as many possible in the hopes of convincing them to do their best in transitioning from goods with comedic/emotional punchlines, to those with pragmatic ones.
The first motto should be: if you want to learn something, go learn it. Don’t wait for some teacher, professor, parent, religious figure/deity, or politician to spoon feed you something that may not even be what you ultimately seek in the first place.
Another vital aspect possessed by those who want to help solve this problem is to question dogma (with the intention of refining it and making it more efficient). This includes knowledge, the law, religious doctrines, policies/procedures at your workplace, and social infrastructure and the corresponding (in)equality it induces. Te failure of society to fully embrace scientific thinking is exemplified by the fact that only the questioning of knowledge is typically called “science”, whereas the questioning of the other dogmas listed above is typically called “disobedience”. They are all science.
The above two ideas should serve as a generators of scientific thinking. To master them is to be a scientist. To be a scientist is to help solve this crippling problem that slowly devours us.
Academic Cesspit 