“Can you find my lost shoes?”
“Do you have 24 hour a day video monitoring over my cheating boyfriend’s house?”
“Is there treasure buried under my farm?”
I get these questions all the time. People seem to be under the impression that there are squadrons of satellites overhead and that they watch each and every one of us with minute detail every minute of every day. What’s more these satellites can see everything.
I blame Hollywood for part of it.
We’re not quite there yet. But this post really isn’t about the dangers of the surveillance state. I will save that for another day. It has more to do with the public’s relationship with science and the perception that science is the modern-day equivalent of magic.
It really isn’t a modern phenomena either. Particularly in our country’s history we’ve fallen under the sway of science’s siren call. Look at the 19th century traveling medicine show, or all the quack applications of electricity or radiation (electropathy, the X-ray shoe sizer, magnetic therapy).
In the middle ages we had the promise of alchemy and magic to capture the public’s imagination and promise solutions to even our most conventional problems.
Seems that little has changed. The general public is little interested in the inner workings of science or magic. Just as long as it works, they’re satisfied.
If you look at the above examples you see problems and concerns that really don’t need science to address. The public could easily solve or sidestep these problems themselves but instead they choose to try to find the easy and convenient way out.
I suppose what really irks me about this attitude is that there is a total lack of understanding about the mechanics of science. Not only that but there is a total lack of desire to understand the mechanics. This is more than just willfully ignorant, it’s dangerous.
This sets the public up for all manner of abuse, fraud, and manipulation.
In my line I run into this problem quite a bit. “Companies” based out of basements or boiler rooms and promising to locate oil, gold, and other valuable resources underground for clients and then collecting hefty fees and disappearing.
Not only damaging to the client who just wasted money but also damaging to companies that do honest work.
I tell people to take the time to double-check these promises and try to teach and inform them about what we can and cannot do with our technology. I can’t outright call these other companies frauds and con-men but I do tell these potential clients to ask for references, to read up on the subject, and to just use common sense.
I don’t expect every person to become a scientist or read science journals but I would hope that they would use a little more common sense and look for the practical solution rather than the easy way out.
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