Where are Proponents of the Enlightenment?

The place of the Enlightenment in public debate has all but disappeared. Renowned philosophers who do engage with criticism of the Enlightenment, such as Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, do not catch the imagination of a wide public in the way Foucault did 40 years ago. Even the great scientists of NASA and Caltech, heirs of Isaac Newton, armed with massive modern reams of data, cannot sway the majority of the American public into believing that global warming is man-made. Instead of majo...

 Teach Science Appreciation

When you study art, nobody expects you to become Picasso, but you’re taught how to appreciate Picasso: What goes into making great art? What motivates the artist? Why is it important? We don’t teach science that way. We teach science as if everybody’s going to practice it. Why can’t we teach science so students understand what the scientific method is, who the great scientists were, what motivated them, the important role that science plays in society, and what critical thinking is?