I’ve been toying with this thought for a while. Carl Sagan wrote about it. (The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark). RTFirefly touched upon it elsewhere.
Unless you look in a specialized publication on a specialized subject, you can’t find any scientific coverage.
Example: The world has scared itself in a tizzy over ‘genetically-modified’ food yet the best reason they have for being against it is the meaningless “It ain’t the way God (nature) intended.”
People always been intranced and enthralled by the fantastic. We want to believe there is magic out there. We want to know that the impossible is probable. We seem more enamored now with aliens, UFOs, bigfoots, ghosts, miracles, and vast global conspiracies. We wish to live forever, conquer space, talk to the animals, create a virtual reality as refuge to our real reality.
Yet nothing from the fields in biotech, engineering, astronomy in the respectable news. I bet that if you ask a friend to name a science information the first one would be “Sightings.” With very few people educating others, the spokespeople for science are “self-proclaimed experts in ESP, UFOs, biblical prohecy, ghosts and the Bermuda Triangle!” (quoting Ursa Major).
Is there no hope?
Will it take the prospect of a million dollars award to change our ways?
SterlingNorth
[sub]Go to sleep! It’s almost dawn![/sub]
That link, which apparently supports GM foods, also says “The new science of genetic engineering takes this ancient tradition and speeds it up. Certainly that should give everyone pause. Frankenfoods could potentially be dangerous to people, other species, and nature in general. There ought to be rigorous testing, independent of commercial interests.”
But the big debate here is about whether such foods should be labeled. Well, why not? Certainly, a segment of the population will shy away, but so what? Wouldn’t a visible reminder that the food was GM, and apparently safe, be more persuasive in the long run?
But isn’t the main reason to label it GM as so to ostrisize it?
Anyway, the main thrust of my post isn’t the merits of genetically modified fods, but that nobody is spending time explaining what is happening in the fields of science except for the UFO are communicating with Bigfoot folks, and the “all science are evil and all scientists are athiestic heathens” folk.
I knew I should have put in more and diverse examples as so not to begin a debate over the sole example.
Example #2: The current slate of politicians want to renew the building of an ABM system, which if I’m not mistaken , become reliable enough that it now requires large balloons to fool it.
But I’ll go read up on genetically modified foods, and come back later.
SterlingNorth
[sub]I forgot how to great debate![/sub]
I think this is very simply explained: Which has higher ratings, Jerry Springer or the Discovery Channel? The Teeming Masses are simply not interested in science. Why? Well, there are lots of explanations. Poor education system, mass media, you name it. I guess that’s why this site exists.
As for GM food, that’s a whole 'nother thread. I could go off, but I won’t.