I Love Science
I love science and scientists and the academic culture that cocoons them.
Scientific journal Science is celebrating its 125th anniversary by asking 125 big questions that science can't answer... yet. The ground rule in the selection process was that "scientists should have a good shot at answering the questions over the next 25 years, or they should at least know how to go about answering them." Here are the top 25:
What Is the Universe Made Of?
What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
What Controls Organ Regeneration?
How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?
How Does Earth's Interior Work?
Are We Alone in the Universe?
How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
What Determines Species Diversity?
What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of Biological Data?
How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?
Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?
Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?
Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?
How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?
What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When?
Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/125th/
A rational education "teaches grasp of facts," as Dorothy Sayers wrote. Downside: Geekdom, mental tyranny, falling in love with an idea, &c. Contrast passion: Teaches grasp of desire, one might say - knowing clearly what you want. Downside: Lotos-eating, emotional tyranny or manipulation, falling in love with an idea, &c.
So how come: Science and scientists are in love with the Socratic ideal of not-knowing, of the sphere of the unknown, as much as they are in love with their desire to be right. Scientists want just as badly as regular people to be right, and they're taught to be a lot better at maintaining the superficial appearance thereof. Cross-reference Mesmer, David Baltimore. But there's still this love afair with unknowing. How do these two desires - the desire to get at the truth damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, the desire to be the Ozymandias of the mind - coexist? And how come non-scientists have the latter and not the former? Many of those so-called "regular guys" have a tendency to rush away from the former in service of the latter, even.
I guess this goes back to my previous question of How do we teach people to be curious and interested?
Scientific journal Science is celebrating its 125th anniversary by asking 125 big questions that science can't answer... yet. The ground rule in the selection process was that "scientists should have a good shot at answering the questions over the next 25 years, or they should at least know how to go about answering them." Here are the top 25:
What Is the Universe Made Of?
What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
What Controls Organ Regeneration?
How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?
How Does Earth's Interior Work?
Are We Alone in the Universe?
How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
What Determines Species Diversity?
What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of Biological Data?
How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?
Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?
Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?
Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?
How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?
What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When?
Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/125th/
A rational education "teaches grasp of facts," as Dorothy Sayers wrote. Downside: Geekdom, mental tyranny, falling in love with an idea, &c. Contrast passion: Teaches grasp of desire, one might say - knowing clearly what you want. Downside: Lotos-eating, emotional tyranny or manipulation, falling in love with an idea, &c.
So how come: Science and scientists are in love with the Socratic ideal of not-knowing, of the sphere of the unknown, as much as they are in love with their desire to be right. Scientists want just as badly as regular people to be right, and they're taught to be a lot better at maintaining the superficial appearance thereof. Cross-reference Mesmer, David Baltimore. But there's still this love afair with unknowing. How do these two desires - the desire to get at the truth damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, the desire to be the Ozymandias of the mind - coexist? And how come non-scientists have the latter and not the former? Many of those so-called "regular guys" have a tendency to rush away from the former in service of the latter, even.
I guess this goes back to my previous question of How do we teach people to be curious and interested?
posted by Kira at 1:24 PM
1 Comments:
Not to go all D&D on you, but there's intelligence and there's wisdom.
It's hardly a new idea that one seed of wisdom is knowing what you don't know. Scientists are trained to believe they don't know anything--even the things they can prove in the lab (as we discussed elsewhere--current theory is just "best so far", not absolute knowledge), which means that they shouldn't be afraid of the things they don't know (at least as long as they avoid the ego traps our society sets for specialists).
The beauty of the things you don't know YET is that the more of them there are, the more things there are still out there for you the learn. The good scientists, and the good process philosophers, know this.
So, I'll stick with my earlier comment--the first step to getting people interested in what they don't know is removing the twin fears: fear of looking foolish due to lack of knowledge, and fear of what you do not understand.
The first is addressed by a culture that places emphasis on ability to learn and instills confidence in the ability to do so. No stigma for what you haven't had the opportunity to learn, just cases when you chose not to learn for poor reasons.
The second falls in to some extent with the confidence, since "stuff I haven't learned yet" is less scary than "stuff I don't know", but there needs to be more--there needs to be understanding that it's OK for there to be things we can't learn yet, either because we don't have the right giants to stand on, or because we ourselves aren't ready yet.
I'm not sure how to do anything about that last bit.
Not yet, anyway :)
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