Headline News, Science Views II (1993) / Chapter Skim
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1 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
1 SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Pages 1-14
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Yet where science is poorly taught, missing in the national intellectual discourse, not discussed casually over dinner in the average household, and absent from television talk shows, people's natural instinct for it is unsatisfied. They turn somewhere else.
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The UFO ecological niche is filled partly because discussions of the nature of scientific evidence are virtually absent from popular culture. Skepticism is present in the used car lot, but absent before the "newspaper" offerings of the supermarket checkout line.
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We have a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which the average person understands hardly anything about science and technology. This is the clearest imaginable prescription for disaster-especially in a purported democracy.
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The economist talked about global starvation, and the former police officer sitting beside me on the sofa warned of the inevitability of drugs and crime. When ~ held to my viewpoint that technology would make the future better, the others looked at me with scorn.
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Unaware that cities are a hopeless cause, we design successful urban transportation systems like BART in San Francisco or the Washington Metro. Oblivious to the hopelessness of the educational crisis, we pursue technological aids to education.
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An anecdote about two of my former mentors illustrates the dilemma. The story goes that Werner Heisenberg and Felix Bloch, two of the giants of modern physics, were walking along a beach on a sunny day.
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in China, by contrast, a detailed record of the phenomenon was made. The one-sided emphasis on religion during the Middle Ages produced great art and lasting moral principles, but it also led to serious abuses, such as the murderous Crusades and the neglect of corporal suffering.
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Although some historians point to evidence of earlier visits by Europeans, and others are troubled by the cultural and economic consequences that resulted from the meeting of civilizations from two hemispheres, Columbus' feat remains significant. His voyage dramatically extended the frontier of the world as known to his European contemporaries.
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The passage between the continents that required weeks of hazardous sea travel is now accomplished comfortably by air in only hours. Satellite television coverage of news in other countries has brought immediacy to once remote events.
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A television series that begins airing on PBS tomorrow night, "Space Age," recounts the remarkable history and examines the future of the space program. The last 35 years have given us confidence that the frontier of space is accessible.
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Recent findings about small bodies beyond Pluto, and about fluctuations in the Big Bang and the origin of the Universe, remind us that space provides unlimited opportunities for discovery and surprise. As we commemorate this historic anniversary, the best way to honor Columbus is not with parades but with the renewal of our own human spirit of exploration.
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