SALLY'S SALON... LET'S TALK
About...SCIENCE
SALLY’S SALON…LET’S TALK
About…SCIENCE
Science: a challenge and a concern: Science makes many things possible; it has transformed lives with new information and methods that are intended to explain life and make it easier. It has led to a greater understanding of our planet and its resources. It has reached out to the discovery of an ever-expanding universe beyond the world we know to spaces where other worlds exist and have existed. It has provided new thinking about who we are and who we can be. It has led to the establishment of a society that values the abilities that these goals have promoted. It has convinced much of society that this is progress.
The concern is the direction in which science is taking humanity. Over the years people have developed lifestyles that reflect the choices they have made. The choices have been made from areas of the environment that surround them and appeal to them. The resident of the plains has been attracted to the soil and what it can produce. That person has perhaps become a farmer and an environmentalist. The resident of the city has admired the bigness and the activity and possibly become a builder . The resident of the coast has become a sailor and perhaps a fisherman. The resident of the mountains has become perhaps a climber and/or an artist in admiration of the beauty around him. This is the natural direction in which people go. Science has made other choices evident and possible. Science along with technology has enlarged humanity’s vision of possible choices.
Some of the early examples of this influence was the introduction of the machine. Machines made farms bigger and buildings higher. Technology, the fraternal twin of science, made information more accessible and the world became a wider environment. It was a growth that enriched the lives of those who responded to it with courage and willingness to expand their lives and become More - physically , mentally , and emotionally. It made life more interesting and exciting. It was a change that brought benefits to lives, while at the same time changing the world. For the elite, its acceptance also gave science and technology the opportunity to expand into more areas.
Recent centuries had been times when landowner-peasant relationships had moved to the formation of nation states with the expectation of more freedom and choice, a more fulfilling life for those in servitude. As nations gained wealth through development, a colonial era became a way to exercise this power in the pursuit of resources. Problems of inequality within nations gradually led to dis-satisfaction among the masses and resistance to change from leaders. Divisions grew within nations. Competition among developed nations resulted in enmities that spread worldwide. Science and technology responded with its attention to the new needs that now centered on winning wars. Progress meant better weapons, broader alliances, better communication that made these wars acceptable to the people, and ways of knowing what “enemies” were planning.
The present time clearly reveals the errors that have brought the world to the chaotic situation in which we are now. The U.S. as the most powerful nation in wealth and military strength has been the example that many other nations have admired and followed, but a change is now in evidence, both in world thinking and within the U.S. as the current widespread rejection of the neoliberal philosophy adopted by our political system of unbridled capitalism has indicated.
Questioning of whether what can be done should be done, and a return to spiritual values of right and wrong are signs that human intelligence has also advanced to confront the definition of progress and bring it into line with truth. But problem-solving is lagging.
Scientific goals and developments that are actively being pursued and implemented, and are being used by technology , are at a point where attention must be given to transform them for the benefit of humanity and the very existence of life on earth.