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Science a Mystery to U.S. Citizens
maddugan writes "CNN and probably others are posting their synopses of the National Science Foundation's biennial report on the state of science understanding in the US. Sixty percent of those surveyed believe in ESP, psychic power, and alien abduction."
As a graduate student in physics, it has long been obvious to me that the general public has NO idea of what is going on in science. There are a variety of reasons for the scientific ignorance of the general public.
1. The common "Who cares" attitude about science. This is rampant in society -- try talking to a non-scientist about some scientific issue and watch the eyes of most people glaze over.
2. The media dramatizes and reduces complicated scientific issues into 2-second sound bites. This is why, for example, so many people misunderstand what Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity actually state.
In some sense, this is a dangerous development for society. The US Founding Fathers supported the creation of public libraries because they realized that having an informed public is important for good government. This does not mean that everyone should be an expert at say diagonalzing a Hamiltonian, but at least actually know what the heck Quantum Mechanics is about (and no it will not help you lose weight). Scientific progress is creating technology that will revolutionalize human society and even what it means to be human. These are things that the public, as a democracy, should understand because it affects everyone.
The problem with science is that there is always doubt, and most people don't want doubt, they want certainties.
For example: from where I sit, I cannot see into my garage - in fact, I cannot see my garage at all. Therefor, if I am to be absolutely precise, I cannot state that my car is in the garage. It could have been stolen, it could have disappeared in a puff of smoke, it could have been abducted by aliens. Each of those is a hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that the car is setting there. If I am to be precise, I cannot state for fact that my car is there or not.
However, since my garage is locked, my car is locked, and had the doors opened I probably would have heard them, the hypothesis that it was stolen is unlikely. Given the body of evidence supporting conservation of matter, the hypothesis that it went poof is unlikely. And any aliens that could reach Earth would have little use for my car, so even if the Drake equation is bunk it would seem unlikely aliens would have stolen it. The most likely hypothesis is that my car is right where I left it (relative to the Earth's surface).
However, that sort of thinking doesn't make sense to the average person. "How can you *not* know your car is out there?" And when a scientist says "I cannot conclusively disprove it", they think that means that is must be true.
Most so-called "science" teachers just teach that water is H20, that natural gas burns in oxygen, etc. In short, they teach facts, rather than teaching the tools to THINK, and to CHECK what you think. It's easy to test if a student can regurgitate the facts you've crammed down their throat - testing if a student can actually THINK when confronted with a new situation is hard, and subject to opinion (read: "If I flunk this kid, can his parents cast doubt upon my grade?").
Until we actually start teaching kids to THINK, to constantly question what they know, and to take nothing for granted, we will have this sort of nonsense running around. And since the Industrial Revolution the purpose of public schools has been to turn out organic labor units, not thinking individuals.
And before you pat yourself on the back, smug in your superiority - when was the last time YOU actually stopped to think about your opinions, and to ask "Now, what are the underlying axioms of this belief? What truths must I hold self-evident to get to this belief? How can I test if those beliefs are true?"
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...richie - It is a good day to code.
I'm not attacking you personally, but I have found that anyone who is 'comfortable' with their beliefs has simply stopped examining those beliefs. Being comfortable with your beliefs is like being comfortable with syphilis. Belief is a sort of disease that comes from the ego's need to protect itself from reality.
Am I trying to prove God doesn't exist? No. Am I trying to prove that he does exist? No. I'm just asking: why do we need to prove anything about God?
When you lay aside everything you think you know and think about it at that basic level, it really is quite mystifying.
There is truth in the religious experience, it didn't come from thin air. I have felt this much. But just how much of what we're told is authentic and how much is contrived to meet current political/power needs?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
What do Americans teach their kids at school, if not that the Earth goes around the Sun once a year?
That the Earth revolves around America.
This is such an apt comment, I fully agree. It's incredibly concise too, but just to beat a dead horse I feel I need to elaborate:
Of two previously powerful Empires in history (make no mistake, the U.S. is more or less an Empire) The Roman Empire and The British empire suffered from what is basically Ethnocentrism.
That is, that American culture is in power, thus it's citizens view the world from their position of power and conclude that: "Since we are the most powerful and influential country in the world, why bother caring about the world outside my little realm? I live in the best country in the world, and I don't need to go elsewhere to know that."
Furthermore, this leads to inward looking, and a decline of the very social forces that put an Empire into power in the first place. It happend to the Romans and The British, and probably many more.
So, I find it interesting that this "apathy" on the part of a large percentage of the American population is just a symptom of a larger problem at work: Ethnocentrism. Make no mistake - the United States will continue to be the major power for some time, probably well after everyone who is reading this comment is dead and gone. However, this attitude will eventually lead to the erosion of the foundation that makes the United States as powerful as it is right now.
(No, this is not a troll, just an observation, look this stuff up yourself.)
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