Science will prevail, hopefully in time…

I can't stop thinking about the following short video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson titled "Science in America" that I recently posted to social media.

It's incredibly powerful and I ask you to watch it if you haven't already done so. It's impossible for me to be more eloquent or passionate than Dr. Tyson. His explanation of the scientific method's self correcting mechanisms is poignant. Hell, it's worth watching again so go ahead.

I've watched this video several times and I found myself getting angrier and angrier each time I did. How can we as a nation so casually ignore scientifically proven theories?

But then it dawned on me, people aren’t ignoring all science. They've chosen to question only those theories that challenge their personal beliefs or economic interests. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity or the completely bizarre sub-atomic world described by Quantum Mechanics are not being widely challenged. Let’s face it, curved space-time doesn’t infringe on many religious beliefs and our solid-state computer driven society would not be possible without the illogical properties of sub-atomic particles described by quantum mechanics.

As oddly as it may seem, this calms me down a bit. (OK maybe only a little…) Why? Because this pattern of rejecting new scientific findings that go against the established grain of religious/political/economic interests has been repeated throughout history.

There are countless examples of this...

Today we hail Galileo Galilei a genius for realizing the Sun was at the center of the solar system vs. the then current Earth centric mentality. Unfortunately, Galileo’s discoveries did not support the church’s “Earth is the center of the universe” beliefs. His writings got him convicted of heresy and imprisoned for life.

Even Albert Einstein, possibly the greatest scientific genius of all time, fell prey to this when he rejected the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a fundamental tenant of Quantum Mechanics, with his famous “God doesn’t play dice with the universe” quote. He could not bring himself to believe the universe was non-deterministic.

So, why does this comfort me to a small degree? Because in every case, scientific fact has ultimately prevailed. It make take years, decades, or centuries, but it will eventually happen.

However, the world is moving much faster these days.  Will we come to grips with the realities before we render our planet uninhabitable for our own species? This requires we prioritize long term, and I mean very long term, outcomes over our more immediate gratification. Humans are terrible at this. Our brains are not designed to make good long term decisions. The condition is called Temporal Myopia and it comes as no surprise. Our ancient ancestors were much more concerned about their immediate survival than some future event.

Let's hope the rationality of our more recently developed pre-frontal cortex can ultimately prevail over the instant gratification desires of our ancient limbic system. The future looks pretty bleak if we can't.