I went to the Telus World of Science yesterday. Nominally it was to see the Star Wars exhibit, but I also spent a good part of the day soaking up science.
And it led to some awkward questions.
Have we passed our pinnacle of science? Don’t get me wrong, science is still marching on and making discoveries. But there are very few big science moments that everyone can grasp. Things that people will sit up and notice.
For me, the pinnacle was going to the moon. No one can imagine it as being easy. Everyone can understand what is going on. People can wrap their heads around it.
The Large Hadron Collider is big science, but let’s be honest, I have no real idea what it is doing. I’ve attended a lecture that did describe it, and I may have the gist of it. But my heart doesn’t understand it.
I suppose this is that same kind of “logic” that anti-vaccine people use.
I still am in awe of the big lug, but it doesn’t inspire me. Space does. And so far, the biggest thing we do in space was to send a atomic robot tank to Mars. Impressive. But nothing beats an astronaut.
I read once that one of the benefits of the Apollo mission was that kids wanted to be astronauts, so they took science. It inspired people. Back then, NASA had cachet. Now, it doesn’t inspire as much. (Although I still get goosebumps just seeing a space shuttle go up.) Do kids these days think of returning fire to the gods, or are they more likely to want to be an investment banker to rape and pillage businesses?
Are we just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic? Or can we become gods again?