{"id":99163,"date":"2016-12-06T10:12:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T15:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=99163"},"modified":"2016-12-06T07:12:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T12:12:55","slug":"are-we-too-stupid-for-true-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2016\/12\/are-we-too-stupid-for-true-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Too Stupid for True Freedom?"},"content":{"rendered":"
December 6, 2016<\/div>
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By WallStreetDaily.com<\/u><\/a> \"Are<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to dismiss elites these days, particularly the political and financial variety. But scientists deserve our respect for the rigor of their endeavor. Respect is not worship, though. Investigate.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

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Once upon a time, we burned inconvenient, myth-shattering scientists at the stake.<\/p>\n

Copernicus, the founder of modern astronomy who posited a heliocentric solar system rather than an Earth-centric universe, was merely marginalized by the Catholic Church and Martin Luther. He subsequently abandoned his ideas and didn\u2019t publish his theory until he lay on his deathbed.<\/p>\n

Kepler endorsed and defended Copernicus\u2019 sun-centered theory and also discovered that planets move in ellipses. His reputation is mixed \u2014 there is a NASA project to search for habitable planets named for him<\/strong><\/a> but also modern journalists are accusing him of murder<\/strong><\/a>. He wasn\u2019t burned at the stake. But his mother was imprisoned for witchcraft, released only after he defended her knowledge of medicine and deployed some common sense.<\/p>\n

Galileo\u2019s observations using the recently invented telescope confirmed Copernicus\u2019 theory. In 1616, however, religious leaders condemned the telescope and declared \u201cheretical\u201d the notion that Earth rotated about the sun. And in 1624, Galileo was banished to his estate for the remainder of his life.<\/p>

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But it was Giordano Bruno who suffered the hottest fate.<\/p>\n

The 16th-century Italian scientist expressed his belief in an infinite universe and in the existence of other solar systems. A product of the Reformation, Bruno was declared \u201can impenitent, pertinacious, and obstinate heretic.\u201d He replied: \u201cYou may be more afraid to bring that sentence against me than I am to accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He burned in 1600, but it wasn\u2019t necessarily for his scientific work. He also denied the divinity of Christ, for example, and challenged various other core Catholic doctrines.<\/p>\n

Bruno certainly was, if not a \u201cmartyr for science,\u201d a martyr for free thought.<\/p>\n

We have come a long, long way over the past four or so millennia, whether Bruno died for empiricism or not.<\/p>\n

Indeed, we even have an annual awards ceremony for science designed to evoke that pinnacle of celebrity culture that is the Oscars.<\/p>\n

As Lisa Grossman writes for New Scientist<\/em>: \u201cAt the fifth annual Breakthrough Prize ceremony last night, 14 scientists received a total of $25 million in science prizes for fundamental contributions to human knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ceremony, held at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, featured all the glitz and glam of the Oscars: a red carpet, musical guests such as Alicia Keys and will.i.am, and Morgan Freeman as host.\u201d<\/p>\n

We even elevate to celebrity status the occasional superstar astrophysicist.<\/p>\n

Carl Sagan, for example, earned tons of mainstream notice during the 1980s for his 13-part PBS documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.<\/em><\/p>\n

His work is still influencing researchers, and he\u2019s the inspiration for work that\u2019s led to an exponential increase in the estimate of potential Earth-like planets over the past couple decades.<\/p>\n

The Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University<\/strong><\/a>, established in May 2015, \u201cexplores factors that determine if a planet or moon can host life and how we could find it by bringing together experts from a wide range of scientific disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill Borucki, the lead investigator for NASA\u2019s Kepler project, recently summarized his team\u2019s findings:<\/p>\n

We have learned most stars have planets, that Earth-sized planets are common, and a good fraction are in the habitable zone of their star. And when you put the numbers together: 100 billion stars, 10% with Earth-sized planets, 10% stars like the sun, that\u2019s a billion Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of stars like the sun.<\/p>\n

Neil deGrasse Tyson has also earned some notoriety in recent years, igniting the ire of religious conservatives and climate change deniers as well as cultural critics not amused by his commodification of the universe and its mysteries.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Stephen Hawking, author of the 1988 record-breaking best-seller A Brief History of Time<\/em> and subject of the 2014 Oscar-winning biopic The Theory of Everything. We\u2019ve written recently of the <\/em>famous physicist\u2019s famous pessimism<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Indeed, only last Thursday, writing from the platform of The Guardian, did he write that, \u201cWe are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity,\u201d a result of \u201cclimate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s the fact that \u201cWe now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, \u201cnow, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawking\u2019s admonition begs the question, are we capable of working together?<\/p>\n

He acknowledges his place among the \u201crarefied\u201d elite. \u201cIn addition to this,\u201d he writes, \u201cwith the celebrity that has come with my books, and the isolation imposed by my illness, I feel as though my ivory tower is getting\u00a0taller.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, he observes the evolving political landscape in the United States and United Kingdom:<\/p>\n

So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders.<\/p>\n

It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere.<\/p>\n

I appreciate Hawking\u2019s humility. On behalf of his fortunate class, he concedes their mistakes and cautions against dismissing recent electoral results on both sides of the Atlantic as \u201coutpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also reminded of George Carlin, whose \u201cvuja d\u00e9\u201d routine is \u201ca battle cry of sorts for innovators who aspire to make big change by identifying opportunities that others don\u2019t see,\u201d according to the Harvard Business Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another Carlin quote I have in mind, however, as I consider our cultural priorities, including football, the Kardashians, and pizza crusts stuffed with hot dogs: \u201cThink of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s us. Maybe not you, of course, and certainly not me. You\u2019re reading this, and I wrote it. So we\u2019re obviously in Carlin\u2019s top half.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a corollary to that riff: \u201cThen there are some people \u2013 they\u2019re not stupid \u2013 they\u2019re full of sh*t.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are our politicians, the leaders who endorse, encourage, and abet our skepticism of empiricism.<\/p>\n

Sports, celebrity, pizza, and politics are easy. Everybody is entitled to an opinion or a hot take: There\u2019s no fundamental requirement of expertise.<\/p>\n

In other words, everybody gets a trophy. It\u2019s just my opinion, and I\u2019m entitled to it, whether or not I did the work required to base it on a solid foundation<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yeah, sure, it\u2019s easy to bash elites on the coasts.<\/p>\n

The brilliant HBO series Silicon Valley<\/em> does it to great effect with satire and its mock \u201cmaking the world a better place\u201d mantra.<\/p>\n

Of course, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.\u2019s<\/strong> (GS) Lloyd Blankfein had no such self-awareness when he declared himself just a banker \u201cdoing God\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Great Dismissal these days \u2013 the marginalization of science despite the ostensible veneration we pay Sagan, Tyson, Hawking, and the Breakthrough Prize winners \u2013 is that global warming is \u201cjust a theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, a scientific theory is actually a hypothesis that\u2019s supported by rigorous observation and testing. It is a valid explanation arrived at by scientists using the scientific method.<\/p>\n

We should respect \u2013 though certainly not worship \u2013 scientists. Aristotle advised long ago to investigate, at all times, everything, and everywhere.<\/p>\n

But as for those who practice the scientific method, they\u2019re smart. They have passion. They work hard. They accomplish things that will actually benefit the human race.<\/p>\n

Will an awards show with million-dollar prizes make celebrities of Ronald Drever, Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss, Joseph Polchinski, Andrew Strominger, Cumrun Vafa, Jean Bourgain, Stephen Elledge, Harry Noller, Roeland Nusse, Yoshinori Ohsumi, or Huda Yahya Zoghbi?<\/p>\n

Who knows?<\/p>\n

But the potential for a major monetary payoff and some minor fame may inspire a few kids to pursue hard science.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019ll rely upon them to forge our future.<\/p>\n

Indeed, without those who are researching the cosmos and finding our next planetary home, we literally have no future at all.<\/p>\n

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This Week In\u2026<\/p>\n

Prudence, in the \u201cpractical wisdom\u201d sense of the virtue, courtesy of Quartz, where Erik Olsen profiles \u201cmolecular artist\u201d David Goodsell and his fascinating work:<\/p>\n

\u201cA Scientist\u2019s Paintings Reveal the Incredible Beauty of the Living Cell<\/strong><\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n

Smart Investing,<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Dittman
\nEditorial Director, Wall Street Daily<\/i><\/p>\n

The post Are We Too Stupid for True Freedom?<\/a> appeared first on Wall Street Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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By WallStreetDaily.com It\u2019s easy to dismiss elites these days, particularly the political and financial variety. But scientists deserve our respect for the rigor of their endeavor. Respect is not worship, though. Investigate. Once upon a time, we burned inconvenient, myth-shattering scientists at the stake. Copernicus, the founder of modern astronomy who posited a heliocentric solar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99173,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99163\/revisions\/99173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}