The place of science in our society appears to have taken rather a bashing for several decades now. It should be amongst the most revered and celebrated aspects of our culture, given everything that it has made possible for us to achieve. But instead there have been a variety of attacks from people ranging from religious fundamentalists, to New Age types, to postmodernists. All of whom are keen to peddle their own brand of mumbo-jumbo at the expense of science, which they all see as a threat to their own worldview.
Some people have turned their back on the project of the Enlightenment in favour of every piece of mumbo-jumbo that promises them a quick fix to their problems through false promises, dogma, and vague thinking. This has happened despite all of the success that science has had, that it continues to have, and that it will continue to have indefinitely far into the future. If we are to solve our problems it is science and the technology that it supports that are our best hope for an improved future world.
The attacks on science can even turn personal. Scientists are often mocked in the popular press as unworldly boffins or in movies as madmen who are hell-bent on the destruction of the world. But this can even stretch to postmodernist writers with a grudge who are only too eager to defame scientists whilst at the same time praising every lunatic religious fundamentalist, every clueless astrologer, every charlatan homeopath and every New Age guru who promises spiritual elevation for a thousand bucks a level.
Science is the most important achievement that mankind has made thus far in our evolution. Where it does go too far, such as in the development of weapons of mass destruction, for example, then it should rightly be criticised. But people should stop criticizing it unjustly in all of those far more common cases where science contributes something positive to our world, whilst arguing in favour of things that offer nothing of substance in exchange.
Where would we be without the advances of science and the technologies that it allows us? If we throw away logic, reason, rationality, the scientific method, and all the advances that we continue to make off the back of these tools, then it amounts to our first step back to the Dark Ages with Osama Bin Laden. The final step would see us back in the trees with our monkey cousins, or if we believe some religious thinkers, sat under a tree that we are not allowed to eat from.
