I used to hate science. Now, this was back
when I thought that science was a
collection of boring facts that had no
clear relevance to my personal life. But
I now know that I was wrong, because
science is a process. It is an elegant,
beautiful process, because it's so simple.
The process of science is, literally,
gathering evidence and then using that
evidence to guide future decisions.
What this means is that you, your family,
your friends -- everyone that you know
conducts science on a daily basis. We
all use evidence to inform our future
decisions, or at least we should all be
doing that. So, this process is not only
incredibly simple, but it's globally
accessible to everyone, and despite its
simplicity and its accessibility,
it actually has led to incredible,
profound, life-changing progress. Fruits of
scientific labor affect you constantly.
In fact, everything that you love about
your modern life is either directly or
indirectly the result of science. The device
that you're using right now: obviously
decades of science went into that. But the food that you
eat, that you need to your family, that food
is the result of agricultural science.
The health of your loved ones, the health of your pets:
that has been enhanced and sustained by
incredible amounts of scientific research.
Of course, the vehicles that you drive and
the planes that fly in: these are modern
marvels that directly result
from science, which, by the way, of course, got us
to the moon. So, science has constructed our
modern civilization. It has allowed us to
flourish, and it has enhanced the lives of
every single person on the planet.
This includes people from all sides of
the political spectrum. So, it doesn't
matter what labels you assign to yourself;
you, nonetheless, are benefiting on a
moment-to-moment basis from the fruits
of scientific labor. And so, a war on
science or an attempt to slow science or
silence science is ultimately an attempt
to hinder human progress,
and this not only threatens our current
existence, which, again, is completely built on and run by
science,
but it is incredibly threatening to our
descendents -- to our children, to our
grandchildren -- these people will require
science to live happy, healthy lives.
So, when you hear people turning science
into a political chess piece, and they're
arguing that science is only for certain
people, and it has some hidden agenda, and
so on so forth,
block that out, and remember: science is
not political, but science is an
essential pillar of society, and we
need it to survive.
