Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Don't blame the scientists

We are the wizards, the sages, the alchemists, the physicians, the medicine men,

All are free to see what we have seen, but so few want to. They refuse to understand, simply believing the lies told to them by their priests hiding behind their guise of the will of the people.

We tell them of great wonders waiting for them if they only go to look, but they hide in ignorance.

We travel to the depths of the atom and the very heights of the heavens. And they refuse to follow.

We know why plants grow, why water flows downhill, why someone dies when their heart is ripped out of his chest.

We tell others, but they do not listen.

Some have compared scientists to religious priests, that we claim to know things that the public doesn't. But there is a key difference, priests pretend to have knowledge the public doesn't know, scientists don't, we really do know things that most of humanity doesn't know. One can easily obtain knowledge of science, all you need is the will to learn it. The problem is that most people only want to learn the interesting bits, the results, and those just can't be taken out of context. Most scientists just can't explain to the average high school graduate who failed chemistry how a nuclear fusion reactor works (and why it won't blow up the city) without giving a detailed explanation of nuclear physics that takes most people years to finish. And what's worse, journalists and politicians keep reducing scientist's great works to ten-minute blurbs laced with their own agendas.

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