Science and Our Lives

"Take a left on Exit 765," says the voice on your cell phone.  "The airport is on your left."  You give your spouse a quick video call on your phone; you both smile at one another from 50 miles away and end the call.  You enter the elevator and head up to the terminal floor.  You check in by scanning your credit card and driver's license, head through security, and make your way to your gate.  You're right on time and board your flight.  You sit back, enjoy the smooth take off  and as the plane breaks over the clouds, you take out your iPad, slide your finger across it to find a good ebook and plug in your head phones to tune out the rest of the world.

Science has impacted our lives in a way that humans from just a hundred years ago could not have even imagined.  For those humans who live in a technologically advanced country, virtually every minute of their lives is impacted by scientific expansion.  In spite of this, there seems to be a large gap between  the technology a person uses and that person's knowledge of the history and underlying concepts of that technology.  It seems the average person's understanding of scientific progress is on par with the discoveries from at least several hundred years ago.

How many of us could begin to explain how a GPS system really works?  How the engine in your vehicle works?  How does your voice and image instantly make it to your spouse's handheld device?  What's going on in that elevator when you press those buttons?  How does that airport scanner find your ticket information?  How did that secure x-ray machine help keep you safe?  How does that plane actually get off the ground?  How does that iPad really work?  How does that sound travel to your ears through a wire?

For most of us, these questions leave us shrugging our shoulders.  More often than not, we don't give any of these questions a second of thought.  We simply expect the technology to work.  We get frustrated if the GPS takes us on a longer route.  We're agitated if the video call has a two second delay between the display and sound.  And heaven forbid the elevator should stop between floors!  To top it off, while understanding nothing of the process, we casually lean back in our seats while we're being shot through the air at 500 miles per hour 30,000 feet off the ground.

                

This gap between our understanding of and participation in scientific advancement is progressively growing.  The number of scientific fields and the pace at which each field is making break-through discoveries is overwhelming.  It's nearly impossible to keep up with it all.

It seems to me, for some people this breach of understanding seems to encourage cynicism towards current scientific discoveries and endeavors.  "How could they possibly know that?"  "They've been wrong so many times before about other things."  "They're just after money."  "It's simply not worth spending the money on this research."  Lately, these types of cynical statements often target fields like medicine, biology, and cosmology.

While entrusting every minute of our lives to the scientific philosophy and the past accomplishments of the scientific community, when scientific conclusions challenge other ideas we hold dear or tap into our fears and insecurities, our default often seems to be a rejection of those conclusions.  I'm not advocating we simply swallow anything that comes from some scientist, but it does seem to me a person in today's world should find themselves embracing the scientific philosophy and giving the conclusions of the scientific community the benefit of the doubt.

Further, many in today's community want to stifle scientific endeavors because of the associated costs.  However, many - if not most - of the discoveries that paved the way for the lifestyle we live today were simply stumbled upon as a result of scientific curiosity; someone pursuing knowledge only for the sake of it. 

                

Here's to encouraging each of us to add a science book to our virtual shelves now and then to get a better understanding and appreciation of how science has brought us to where we are today.  And here's to hoping this culture continues to support scientific advancements to help bring us to a brighter tomorrow.