Knocking on Heaven's Door - Lisa Randall [38]
This legacy of not trusting our ability to figure things out for ourselves continues in other respects as well, when we see it in humor, movies, and a good deal of today’s politics. Sincerity and respect for facts have become somewhat unfashionable in our ironic and often anti-intellectual era. The degree to which some people will go to deny the successes of science can be amazing. I was once at a party where I met someone who boldly insisted to me that she didn’t believe in science. So I asked her whether she had taken the same elevator to the eleventh floor that I had. Did her phone work? How did her electronic invitation reach her?
Many people still consider it embarrassing or at best quaint to be earnest about facts or logic. One source of anti-intellectual antiscientific sentiment might be resentment at the act of egotism in a person feeling powerful enough to tackle the world. Those who have an underlying sense that we don’t have the right to take on enormous intellectual challenges believe these are the domain of higher powers than we possess. This peculiar anti-ego, anti-progress trend can still be heard in the playground and the country club.
For some individuals, the idea that you can decipher the world is a source of optimism and leads to a sense of greater understanding and influence. But for others, science and scientific authorities who know more and have greater skill in these technical areas are a source of fear. People divide themselves according to who feels qualified to engage in scientific activities and to evaluate scientific conclusions, and who feels left out and powerless in the face of scientific thought and therefore views such pursuits as acts of ego.
Most people want to feel empowered and to experience a sense of belonging. The question each individual faces is whether religion or science offers a greater sense of control over the world. Where do you find trust, comfort, and understanding? Do you prefer to believe that you can figure things out for yourself or at least trust fellow humans to do so? People want answers and guidance that science can’t yet provide.
Nonetheless, science has told us much about what the universe is made of and how it works. When you put together all of what we know, the picture scientists have deduced over time fits together miraculously well. Scientific ideas lead to correct predictions. So some of us trust in its authority, and many recognize the remarkable lessons of science through the ages.
We constantly move beyond human intuition as we explore regions to which we don’t have immediate access, and we have yet to make discoveries that bring back the centrality of humans in our description of the world. The Copernican revolution consistently repeats itself as we realize how we are just one of many sets of objects of a random size in a random place in what appears—in the scientific viewpoint—to be a randomly operating universe.
People’s curiosity and the ability to make progress toward satisfying this hunger for information make humanity very special indeed. We are the one species equipped to ask questions and systematically chip away to find the answers. We question, we interact, we communicate, we hypothesize, we make abstractions, and in all of this we end up with a richer view of the universe and our place within.
This doesn’t mean that science necessarily will answer all questions. People who think science will solve all human problems are probably on the wrong track as well. But it does mean that the pursuit of science has been and will continue to be a worthwhile endeavor. We don’t yet know all the answers. But scientifically inclined people, whether or not they have religious faith, try to pry open the universe and find them. Part II explores what they’ve found so far and what’s now on the horizon.
Part II:
SCALING MATTER
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
Though the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus might have started off on the right track when he posited the existence of