Freethinking for Dummies

A Practical Use For A Science Education – A Job

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer,  has a nice article in where he discusses how data shows that the jobs with the least percentage of unemployed tend to be science based.  This means that if you have a science education, any kind of science education, you will likely have an easier time finding a job than those who don’t.  He also bemoans the current anti-science platform being pushed by Republican legislatures across the country and nationally because they work against real job creation in the country.

The fact is , science works.  It isn’t perfect; it is constantly being revised as we learn more and more about the universe in which we live.  In fact, it is this very trait, the falsifiability of scientific theories, that makes is such a powerful tool for understanding and making the most out of the world we live in.  It is able to adapt and improve as more data is collected.

Look around you.  You are reading this on a computer or smartphone.  You cook on stoves that use natural gas or electricity instead of over an open fire.  You live in houses that have electricity and running water.  In fact, almost everything that you own or use is a product of science.   Each law that is passed to push creationism in schools, that strips science funding from colleges and universities, that limits stem cell research, that seeks to deny global warning chips away at the foundation of our economy and national security.

There is a good reason why people call the current religiously motivated, anti-science, Republican party the American Taliban.  Like their brethren in Afghanistan, they too seek to take us back to the middle ages where people work from sun up to sunset to scrape together an existence; where children die of starvation and disease in a world surrounded by plenty of food to feed them and medicine to cure them.  Yes, this is a bit of hyperbole, but the fact remains that the more science is marginalized and vilified, the more this country loses its place as a leader in the world and becomes a follower, begging scraps from those it once looked down on.

November 10, 2011 Posted by James Walker | Religion, Science | education, Science | Leave a Comment