The Danger of Scientific Ignorance in a Science-Based Civilization

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when we're a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those In authority; when, clutching our crystals and religiously consulting the newspaper horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition.

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements — transportation, communications, and all other industrias; agricultura, medicine, education, entertainment, and protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting — profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. We night get away with it for a while, but eventually this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

We are more reliant on science than ever before, but we are also most disdainful of it.