REVIEWED BY DAVID PRIESS
If you are looking to push humanity beyond persistent divisions of religion, racism, sexism, and nationalism you could do worse than focus on science. The systematic study of nature through careful observation and experimentation has consistently delivered the goods.
The list of the benefits to civilization resulting from the practice of science and its concomitant derivatives in technology is long and uniquely impressive. Consider the printing press, electricity, and semiconductors. Think about Penicillin, DNA, and X-rays. These developments arose not from unquestioning belief or superstition but from objective analysis based on trial, error, and observation.
Nothing novel there. By contrast, however, there is something new in looking explicitly to the promotion of the pure sciences as a wise long-term tool of statecraft. Shouldn’t an enlightened country that stands far above others in the global arena—like the United States from the late 20th century through today, and likely well into the future—use science itself not only to preserve its status as a world leader but also as a public good for humankind?
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About Skeptic
SPECIAL SECTION
Skeptic’s Science Dialogues: Bill Nye in Conversation with Michael Shermer on Climate Change, Travel to Mars, Artificial Intelligence, Nuclear Power, GMOs and more…
ARTICLES
Miracle Water: Why Zamzam Water is Not a Valid Medical Treatment; Lone Wolf Terrorism: The Convergence of Mental Illness, Marginality, and Cyber Radicalism; Torturing Data; Mass Hallucinations and Shoddy Journalism; What Would it Take to Change Your Mind?; ET v. Earth Pathogens; Trouble in the Multiverse; Science v. Subjectivity: Football Playoff Teams Selecting College Football Playoff Teams as a Case Study
COLUMNS
The SkepDoc: Functional Medicine; The Gadfly: The Multi-headed Hydra of Prejudice
REVIEWS
The Stealth Determinism of Westworld—a Review of the television series Westworld; Back to the Future and Forward to the Past—a Review of Time Travel: A History; Cosmic Consciousness and the Ptolemaic Principle—a review of You Are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why it Matters; Science International—a review of Courting Science: Securing the Foundation for a Second American Century; Conjuring Magic—two books on the history of magic: Conjuring Asia: Magic, Orientalism and the Making of the Modern World and Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World
JUNIOR SKEPTIC
An Easy Guide to Baloney Detection