Our Troubled
Science:
Why We Are Descending into Dark Ages.
There is a
growing sense of unease among the scientists caused by the growing
support of the general public for the various forms of
fundamentalism, creationism, and the increasing power of religions
generally. Why should a religion--something not founded on
reason--have any attraction to anyone at all? The answer could,
perhaps, be that science is not as useful to humanity as it could
and should be.
Why should our sciences fail us? The main reason could be that for
the ordinary people whatever solace a religion can provide is
easier obtainable than what science have to offer. What science can
offer might be brilliant, but knowledge is increasingly becoming a
commodity, and the proceeds of scientific knowledge increasingly
inaccessible to ordinary mortals.
While most people in the world live in substandard conditions,
scientists, with perhaps some exceptions, spend their energy on
projects that, to most humanity, must seem trivial. Should science
regain any useful standing in the society, scientists would have to
curtail doing whatever it is that they are busy with at the moment
and seriously use their knowledge to address the most pressing
problems that we, as the whole global society, are experiencing.
And not only superficially, but they would have to strive for
fundamental cures, such that would do away with the problems that
have been with humanity for almost forever, but that don't have to
exist at all--wars, poverty, humans devastating the Earth.
To put it in other words: the more scientific knowledge knowledge
there is, the less problems in the world there should be--but this
is not the case, clearly.
Unless the scientists start actively cooperating together on
solving humankind's and the Earth's dire problems soon, there is
the danger of science becoming a property of the Earth's powerful
exclusively, with the vast majority of humans not caring whether
they live on a flat, or a round Earth, but rather interested more
in living a better quality of life, something that science cannot
really provide to a majority of them (as science could and should
be doing); something that religions seem to be able to, at least,
promise to provide.
A related article: An
Appeal to Academia. - www.ModelEarth.Org/acappeal.html
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