Archived
E-mail Discussion List
|
|
Return to E-mail Discussion page Next in threadI think post enlightenment society has slowly lost its purpose. That is to say people are feeling more and more empty. Can we just be little baby creating, product producing, resource consuming machines? Science has caused us to question traditional religion (rightly so) and in the process has taken away religion's role of providing meaning and purpose (and worldview). If we approach science as "a provider of technology" or science education as "a method of creating useful citizens" we STILL HAVE THE PROBLEM that these citizens find no meaning in their existences. As an example, isn't it ironic that the people who are so techno-wired (on the internet) participate in UFO cults (those dudes who committed suicide a couple of years back) or religious cults (check out some of the fringe Christian web sites) or pseudo-science (the level of TRITE conversation about time travel or black holes etc on the newsgroups is really mind boggling). This is not to critiize those people who create these "isms" but rather to criticize us as science educators. These philsophies exist because people are grasping for meaning in their lives again. Science took it away and science can bring it back. We are a rich society, and even if we weren't, science and science education must be pursued for PURE reasons. Just as philsophy, or religion (BOTH of which I feel can fill complementary roles in the search for meaning. Last point. I think that humans find meaning in mystery. For example Catholicism's "the mysteries of Christ" or acceptance of paradoxes is actually useful to practicing Catholics. It is through the conflict of ideas that meaning is found, not through the resolution of these conflicts. There is so much conflict in science. For example, the evolution debate is still a great debate. I'm wandering dangerously from my area of expertise here, but as an example, geological and genetic dating are often orders of magnitude off. This is an interesting and important mystery... To conclude, if we teach science as a set of facts or even as a history or conflicts, we miss sacrifice the mysteries which exist today. Joseph Biello (U of Chicago astrophysics grad student) |
