Why I love science. And you should too. -OR- Hey Aaron, I finished that book you got me...

One of the great shames of modern society is that we reward all of our technological advances with stark ignorance.

That's meant to be a sweeping statement.

The fact is science needs a PR division. It shouldn't need one, but it does. This sorry state of affairs is difficult to explain considering the high regard that your average person on the street has for science, even if they themselves struggled to explain why. I think it stems from the misguided notion that you need to be a scientist to understand or appreciate science.

But where the fuck did that notion come from?

I mean, who doesn't go to a science museum and find one thing that appeals to their senses or ideas about "life, the universe, and everything"(D. Adams)? Who doesn't watch a program on TV, or read an article in a periodical, or a book, or have a conversation about science, and not feel, at some level, a sense of tremendous satisfaction?

I contend that science has real answers. Answers about life, the universe, and so on. In fact, it has answers that you can challenge, and not get murdered over, at least by other scientists.

But we are not scientists, you and I. Where does that leave us?

In a book given me as a christmas gift, Richard Dawkins has something even more profound to say to us than his Earth shattering supposition that genes act in their own "self interest", and that organisms are really little more than vehicles for the propagation of genes, not the other way around. This isn't the chicken before the egg argument that it at first appears to be. It is an elegant perspective switch, which suddenly makes the behaviour of all life forms suddenly less confusing. BUT, what Dawkins says in Unweaving The Rainbow is that if you don't have to be a concert pianist to appreciate Rachmaninov, then why would you have to be a trained scientist to appreciate science?

Of course it's not the same.

Humans don’t have the natural proclivity for physics that they seem to for a fat beat, a base line, or a melody, do we? I wonder. Humans have a penchant for technology, that’s for sure. Ever since the dark days of mammoth hunting, cave dwelling, and getting eaten by fucking everything bigger than us, we have been enamored with, and aware of, the corporeal power of technology. Whether it be arrow heads made of volcanic glass, the art of metallurgy, the discovery of agriculture, and electromagnetism, man has been in constant search of better ways to kill other men, and thus gain access to sweet vagina, OR, better ways to increase our leisure time, and increase the quality of that time.

In those dangerous zero sum days, man played chicken with mortality by virtue of trial and error. He had no methodology, no logical approach, but he had stupidity and lust in abundance, and thus he forged boldly forward. A time came when he hit upon a system where, one could pose questions, offer answers, and then test those answers through experiment (with controls!!!), and either prove their answer irrefutably correct (what are known as laws of), or have enough corroborating and empirical evidence to support a supposition in most situations (a.k.a. a theory). Sadly, there is no specialized language to differentiate degrees of theory. The theories of relativity and evolution, for instance, are so tremendously successful and describing and predicting the world in which we live, that no one who is taken seriously refutes them. To do so would paint you either as a complete fucking idiot that no amount of rotten produce pelting can rehabilitate, or a pernicious liar.

This system is known as Science. It is a process. More to the point it is a bottom up process (I wonder why that is so?), unlike religion, which is a top down process (a god said it, it is so). It is a process so unbelievably effective that you can look around you at this very moment, and see it’s fruits. The very fact that you are even alive is not due to the benevolence of some deity, but because someone somewhere said something very like “holy shit!” right before they translated some discovery or new idea from their brain to some distributable medium like pen and paper, keyboard, or word of mouth.

No other approach comes close to the power that the scientific method has to bringing us out of the darkness of ignorance, as does science. It promises nothing, and it offers no threat for disbelief. It is not a system that tells you how to live your life. You have to decide that for yourself. But it can answer the big questions.

What is the meaning of life?

Easy. To live, bitch. Live, breed, pass on your genes, and try to prevent others from passing on theirs at your expense.

Where did the universe come from?

Nothing and nowhere. If you can’t deal with that, kill yourself.

How can I get laid?

Move to Japan motherfucker. All kindsa nasty, fat, ugly dudes are getting pussy here, and the Japanese love science, and ugly fat dudes.

There. Big questions solved, and I’m not even a fucking scientist. BUT, I know a little bit about that shit.

My heroes are mostly scientists because they have, in the past, made some of the boldest statements and stands against ignorance and bald face lies. Nicolaus Copernicus (who dared posit that the Earth orbited the sun!), Charles Darwin (a mere naturalist!), Carl Sagan (astronomer who championed science), Richard Dawkins (who dared suggest we are here at the pleasure of our genes!), Werner Heisenberg (before he tried to build a nuke for the Nazis he demonstrated the bizarre nature of atomic particles), Max Planck (Father of Quantum Theory, in which it comes to pass that all matter consists of wave energy, and therefore, essentially, nothing!), Galileo Galilei (Astronomer, and “Father of Modern Science” who proved out Copernicus!) Edwin Hubble (who discovered not only that the universe was expanding, but that that expansion was actually accelerating!), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (calculated the mass a star has to be before it can implode into a black hole while on a ship for England to study at Oxford for his undergrad), Jonas Salk (discovered antibiotics, which is probably why you’re even reading this), James Watson-Francis Crick-Rosalind Franklin (they discovered the double helix structure of DNA).

Jesus fucking Christ! I mean, any one of these discoveries makes your world and our universe measurably more beautiful, wonderful, and more than worthy of your awe. The latest band/movie/book/piece of fleeting distraction/pop psychology/metaphysics pales by comparison.

We can’t all be scientists. I know I can’t. My mind lacks that species of discipline required to pursue such esoteric concepts seriously. But I can support science; I can be a fan of science. I can be a champion of science in the face of people who would have you and I believe that this universe of ours was made exclusively for humanity by an entity that is willing to torture us for eternity for not obeying its will. Such ideas, and such people would have us remain in the darkness of ignorance simply because their minds are too crippled by fear of the “afterlife” to allow man to grow into something more than a selfish organism that would rather destroy it’s own ability to survive. That is what we are faced with by the way. Either science will save us, or our self-absorption, childish superstitions, and mysticism will doom us to extinction.