miller hudson
A rather strange thing happened during my lifetime. Americans' trust in science has plummeted from unwavering admiration for scientists to suspicions of dastardly academic conspiracies. I was in middle school when the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the Sputnik satellite into orbit.It was just a soccer ball with a built-in buzzer. — No cameras, no scientific equipment, no strategic value. Nevertheless, this shocked the American psyche, which had been led to believe that the United States would always lead in every technological field. — Better TVs, better cars, better appliances, and better planes. How did a group of godless communists get to space before we did?
Anxiety attacks spread to all strata of society. The most noticeable thing was the classroom. Traditional mathematics was replaced by new mathematics, and the teaching of Boolean algebra, described as the language of computers in which everything is coded as a sequence of ones and zeros, was introduced. This may have made sense to the computer, but it was a mystery to his eighth graders, who had never tried regular algebra. It took him more than a decade before educators completely abandoned new mathematics. High schools also began offering advanced courses in physics, chemistry, and calculus. Our heroes were astronauts, a vision of the future captured by the Jetsons.
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We are moving forward with commercial airliners, allowing professional sports teams to relocate to California, and our young president has promised to close the “missile gap.” His kids in the 1940s, like me, contracted bulbous polio, scarlet fever, whooping cough, measles, chickenpox, and mumps, but new vaccines keep coming out to protect young baby boomers from these childhood plagues. did. My extensive juvenile medical history was common in public elementary schools. Being against vaccination makes no more sense than being against the wheel.
At the same time, Americans were beginning to live in a world of inscrutable black boxes. As a Cub Scout, I built crystal radio receivers from scraps of wire and a few simple parts, but few people understood the electronics that operated televisions and Sony Walkmans. We expected that engineers in corporate labs would successfully pack more functionality into smaller boxes. Transistors made this possible, but it was magical and mysterious.
Comic strips like Dick Tracy featured wristwatch cell phones that arrived today. Futurist PersonalHe could not have predicted that computers would be available all over the world. In his first programming class in college, the coding instructions were limited to fitting on his 80-digit IBM punch card. A deck of program instructions was then loaded into a mainframe processor the size of his VW van. It would have been unimaginable to expect a mobile phone with computing power greater than the control systems of the Apollo spacecraft, but that was only a few years away. Bill Gates was already designing the operating system for his IBM personal computer in his Albuquerque garage.
The Internet, social networks, email, and direct messaging have reshaped our society, and not necessarily for the better. But no matter how crazy we may be about technology, its purpose is to provide a safer, healthier, more comfortable, and more affordable quality of life, all of which , as a product of the labor and expertise of scientists. What if the role of conservative thought is to turn history upside down and shout “Stop it!”? As William Buckley argued, the inertia of technology has proven deaf to such appeals.
So when a 2024 presidential candidate promises to deny federal funding to schools and universities that require vaccinations for students, I can't help but shake my head in surprise. These are among his greatest human accomplishments that have saved tens of millions of lives over the past two centuries. We no longer expect our lives to be cut short by unbearable heat. What good or benefit could there be for scientists who warned us to wash our hands, wear masks, and get vaccinated to protect ourselves from disease? Does this medical advice have some explainable ulterior motive, malicious or otherwise?
So are scientific warnings about climate change. What are the possible benefits and rewards for researchers who remind us that the world is getting warmer and that we are partly responsible for this change? The idea that these alarms are a fantasy infused with a cocktail of socialists and scammers who want to control our choices is simply ridiculous. Last month marked the eighth consecutive year of record high average temperatures. As the song says, “Something's happening!”
Dan Ariely's recent book, Misbelief, examines why rational people believe irrational things. He proposes the concept of “solution avoidance.” If you've been around for more than a few decades, it's hard not to notice that the world is getting hotter and the weather is becoming more unpredictable. While we can rationally debate the relative contributions of natural cycles and human behavior, one thing is certain: we cannot reverse these trends without changing our behavior. is. Whether this is achieved through government regulation or market-based initiatives is worth negotiating. However, there is no cure for stasis. While the right is loathed by the regulatory system, the left is wary of economic incentives. Stalemate has proven to be the default alternative to compromise solutions. Scientists may understand a problem, its aspects, causes, and predictable outcomes, but they are not necessarily able to come up with the most sensible solutions. That is the role of politics.
There is considerable irony in the fact that opponents of science rely heavily on computer technology, made available only through the efforts of scientific research, to convey their grievances. Technology is neither inherently moral nor immoral. It is the way in which it is used that brings benefit or harm. People who fear technology are also afraid of the future: IVF, AI, nuclear fusion in electric cars, vaccinations. Because the entire story of humanity is one of progress achieved through scientific inquiry. Moving forward is not a choice, it is a necessity.
Miller Hudson is a public relations consultant and former Colorado state legislator.
