Slashdot Comments | Obama Kicks Off Massive Science Education Effort
With our modern obsession with applicability and utility, where nothing seems to mean anything unless it makes money, we need to remember what science really is. Science isn't just a collection of facts. It isn't just an engine of economic growth. Science is above all a method of exposing nonsense for what it is. Science provides a method for anyone to identify truth from nonsense. When a dispute arises over whose assertions about the physical world are correct, we all agree to look to the physical world as the ultimate arbiter of truth, not to a priest, nor a CEO, nor a minister. Science cannot prove truth. It can only disprove nonsense.
If we, as citizens of a democracy, lose the ability to tell nonsense from truth, then our civilization is in trouble.
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