We live in a wonderful age. From the second half of the twentieth century to the end of the coming decade, at least, we, human beings, will reach unprecedented standards of living that couldn't be imagined even by the kings of the past. Which king could think about instantaneous communication, or reliable treatments for most human illnesses? Intercontinental flight and space travel were unthinkable. Everyone, even the wealthiest, was susceptible to great misfortunes.
Even
though we are still uncomfortable with some problems such as violence nowadays,
the truth is that even in this respect the past was worse than today. Slavery
and torture, for example, were acceptable and commonplace. Warfare was much
more frequent. For any man on Earth's surface it was very difficult not to take
part in a war during his lifetime. Defeat to the enemy and slavery were
constant threats. From small villages to big cities, it was too dangerous to
leave home at night. Bandits would take control of the streets, and there was
no public lighting. Today, despite our fears, we always have good chances of
arriving home alive and well, even at night.
Pests and
famines were also frightening dangers. Food production barely met people's
needs, and storing methods were not much developed. There were no freezers or
vacuum packages. An unfavorable weather meant almost certainly hunger next
year. When famine came there was the even more dreadful threat of pests.
Notions of personal hygiene were nonexistent. The V-shaped streets were filled
with sewage. There were no medicines or vaccines whatsoever. Malnutrition
increased people's vulnerability to disease. Thus, mortality was higher than
today. Stillbirths and child mortality were natural facts of life, and for a
woman to lose six of her eight children simply wasn't so tragic as it is today.
By the way, women were considered, well, a bit less than human!
We could
increase the list of disadvantages of living in the past at will, despite our
grandparents' frequent allusions to the good old days, and they being indignant
with modern times. But the fact is that although most of the problems of the
past still persist in the present, they victimize a much lower proportion of
the population. While in the past poverty was the common human condition, today
even unskilled workers own a variety of consumer goods undreamt of by the
nobility two centuries ago.
This is a
golden era. But what about the future? If material progress never halted,
shouldn't we expect this trend to continue in the future? Can we be sure that
the future is so bright as to make us use sunglasses? No, unfortunately not,
because the future is unpredictable. So, two possibilities will always have to
be considered: a worse-than-today future and a better future.
At the
same time improvements occurred, completely new problems arose. Hence, in our
time there are some problems from the past, only partially resolved, and also
some new, previously unknown ones, with unknown consequences. They are all
being amplified and threatening our future, if we do not solve them timely. The
solution, it couldn't be otherwise, is in the realm of politics. But unlike other
human problems, these involve a certain degree of scientific understanding by
the ones who will have to solve them, that is, every one of us. If we can't
understand them, they will overwhelm us. A growing awareness of them is
essential. Some of these problems, like overpopulation, nuclear weapons
proliferation, and the destruction of the environment that triggers weather
changes and enormous monetary losses are associated with the current scientific
illiteracy of too big a fraction of the population, for everyone must know the
science underlying these problems to understand what is at stake. I will
discuss each of these difficulties briefly, and after that I hope to convince
the reader of how important a generalized scientific education is.
The
current environmental damage is related to the populational growth(which I will
come back to later) and to anachronistic economics, resulting in an exaggerated
exploitation of natural resources. This overexploitation happens because of our
myopic perception of time. Most of us worry only with problems that we can
directly see in a short time span. Any process that happens very slowly is
underestimated or completely ignored. A well-known example of this phenomenon
is the act of smoking. Smokers don't see the damaging daily consequences of
their habit, because they accumulate very slowly, and are perceived only after
many years. Another example is the habit of being overexposed to the Sun for
many years. The damaging effects of solar ultraviolet rays arise only after skin
cells have accumulated a number of mutations. It's impossible to notice what is
happening, but the more one gets exposed to sunlight, the more the risk of skin
cancer increases. It's the same with the environment. Our myopia is worse still
in this case, because the consequences of what we do to the environment don't
come in our lifetime. They accumulate along many generations.
This
handicap can only be corrected with scientific lenses. Thanks to science, we
know that our life span is but an eye blink compared to the very long history
of the Universe. Geology, along with ecosystems and climate, normally take
thousands of years to change perceptibly. The Earth was formed four and a half
billion years ago, and life made its first permanent appearance as soon as the
climate cooled, about four billion years ago. Macroscopic life forms appeared
about five hundred and fifty million years before present (B.P. for short), in
a time we call the Cambrian period. From this Cambrian "explosion"
on, we can trace the occurrence of at least five massive species extinctions on
Earth. One of them, in the end of the Permian period, for instance, happened
200 million years B.P. and swept ninety-five percent of Earth's animals and
plants. The last great mass extinction was probably caused by a giant meteor
impact on Earth in the end-Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. As soon as
our species began to spread from Africa to the rest of this planet, a sixth
mass extinction began. Until the twentieth century, this problem was very mild
and not worrisome. Even though the so-called primitive cultures eliminated
dozens of species in every continent, this damage was just a small scratch to
the huge diversity of species then in existence. But today a big populational
growth and the objective of economic development at any cost impose new demands
and make us compete for space with other ecosystems, seen as natural resources.
We rapidly extinguish these resources, drawing them from nature at a much
superior pace than it can replace. If there is a great demand for mahogany
furniture in the developed world, some third-world logging companies will cut
the trees for profit. But sometimes such trees are one thousand years old. When
they are cut, in half an hour, and for little money, there is also an average
of two hundred different insect species falling to the ground. Some species
exist only in that tree! Most species become extinct before we come to know
them.
You may
ask what is the problem in having some abhorrent insect species killed. The
problem is that the cure for important human diseases might be found in one of
these species. Substances of unthinkable value produced by certain insects may
be lost forever in exchange for a small amount of money. This is one of the
most important reasons for us to try to preserve the number of species on
Earth. Biodiversity offers us a veritable library of possible DNA combinations,
many of them potentially useful for us. Yet if we put economic interest aside,
any scientifically educated person attributes an aesthetic value to this
endless variety of life forms. No species is considered repugnant. On the
contrary, each form of life is seen as an unbelievable wonder, a product of
millions of years of evolution that should be preserved in itself, regardless
of economic motivation. Scientists see beauty in nature. Why should we destroy
beauty?
Another
important aspect of the environmental problem is that we are destroying
something that we do not yet comprehend well, and too quickly. There is
powerful evidence that the climate is greatly influenced by living beings. Each
species on Earth creates the conditions for the survival of the whole planet.
Atmospheric composition and temperature are regulated by geological cycles, but
also by life's processes. Some atmospheric gases are being replaced all the
time by living beings. If they were not replaced, after some time they would
react completely with each other, and the result would be an atmosphere in
chemical equilibrium. That is the case on planets Mars and Venus, where the
atmosphere is composed mainly of carbon dioxide, unlike that of our planet,
which contains nitrogen and oxygen. Every species depends on every other.
Carbon dioxide, for example, is excrement for every animal, including us. But
this gas is food for the plants, being thus recycled by them. Microorganisms
present in the soil digest animal feces, and this also helps plants fixate
certain substances necessary for their growth. Alternatively, we benefit from
plant residuals such as oxygen. We depend crucially on plants to obtain energy,
too. Only they are capable of using and storing energetic photons emitted by
the Sun. When we eat meat or vegetables we are benefiting from the energy
stored in plants. The animals we eat either ate plants or other animals that
did it.
Life
seemingly also regulates our planet's atmospheric temperature, so that it
becomes stable and comfortable for long periods of time. One of the means by
which living beings achieve this amazing feat is paricipating in the carbon dioxide
cycle. If the Earth cools, for instance, the planet's green area diminishes,
and ice accumulates. When this happens, the quantity of atmospheric carbon
dioxide tends to increase, forcing the temperature upward with an increased
greenhouse effect. On the other hand, if the temperature rises, plants tend to
grow in previously barren landscapes, and when they do so, they draw carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the greenhouse effect and lowering the
temperature again. This is just one of the stabilizing feedback processes known
to be caused by life. There are other effects such as changes in the planet's
total brightness, or albedo, that influence temperature and to a certain extent
compensate the effects of the carbon cycle mentioned here. There are many other
effects, including possibly some that we still don't understand.
Lately the
scientific community has been alerting the world to many environmental issues
that threaten our very survival. In the 1970s we were warned about the
depletion of the ozone layer. The producers of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs,
gases that destroy atmospheric ozone, reacted claiming that the warnings were
based on pure speculation. The effects of CFCs weren't apparent, and no changes
could be noticed anyway. They called scientists alarmists and argued that if
any effect could be observed, they would discontinue CFC production. They chose
to actually see the damage when it was already done. A hole in the ozone layer
was detected two decades later - and, unfortunately, the consequence was a
sharp increase in the number of cases of skin cancer diagnosed every year.
Another sad example of how we don't react to things we don't immediately see.
Another
serious problem is the greenhouse effect. We retrieve from the underground, daily,
millions of tons of carbon - in the form of petroleum - that nature, with its
feedback processes, took millions of years to bury! The immediate profit
motivation is an understandable attitude, but if scientific knowledge were more
widespread, the non-renewable fossil fuels wouldn't be consumed so quickly.
Global
warming happens too slowly in our time perspective (though it is extremely
rapid compared to climate changes that occur naturally), and is difficult to
measure. Although its first signs were already detected, we are once more
waiting to see the damage done. Some people may ask if a temperature increase
of just one degree centigrade in our seventy-year life span would have any
importance at all. Not much, really, but the continuity of this warming trend
will bring many unwanted consequences to our grandchildren. The worst of them
is the melting of the polar ice caps, which will cause the sea level to rise.
Entire countries, such as Bangladesh and the Netherlands, may be affected by
the flooding seawater - something highly unfavorable for world peace. The
extinction rate is also likely to increase, because the majority of species
wouldn't be able to adapt to such abrupt changes. Migration of species seeking
new, more favorable habitats, would be made difficult, because humans demarcate
their territory with cities and roads, which fragment the natural medium.
The
already enormous and burgeoning human population is one of those new issues
that we will have to tackle in the years that come, and can only be ameliorated
with increased levels of education. There are now (2000) more than six billion
of us, and this number is increasing rapidly. In the next thirty years a
doubling of the current population is likely to take place. The trend is so
powerful that even if from now on each couple had only two offspring - roughly
the number necessary to keep a stable population - the population would double.
This populational impetus happens because about half the world's population
today is under reproductive age, but soon will become adult.
Why should
we worry about this? Isn't the world capable of sustaining this many people?
Possibly the answer is yes, but in this case there would be some reduction in
the level of material well-being. Of course, it is also possible that the
planet is not capable of supporting so many people. We could transform the
climate even more rapidly, in unpredictable ways, and exhaust many natural
resources. It is possible that in the next ten years drinking freshwater
becomes an expensive resource, and conflicts between countries would surely
ensue.
During our
years as high school students, we learn about a certain Malthusian theory,
which states that the quantity of food grows slowly, whereas population grows
fast. The result would be a perverse population control, for food scarcity
would bring famine, pests or wars. Reassuringly, our teachers told us (in the
1980s, at least) that Malthus' theory was wrong, because from its formulation
to the present day food production accompanied the large population growth.
However, far from being refuted, the Malthusian population theory is one of the
pillars of the ever more influent Darwinian evolutionary theory. The first
premise of the theory of evolution is exactly Malthus' theory, that is, the population
of any species tends to grow exponentially and is halted only by the supply of
natural resources available for that species in a given environment, of which
other species are a part and compete for the same resources. It's worth talking
briefly about the second important premise of evolution, which will not concern
us here. Individuals in a population are different from one another. Today we
know this happens, simply stated, due to genetic mutations. Most mutations do
more harm than good. Nobody is perfect, the popular dictum goes. Some of us,
though, present favorable traits that either facilitate our access to resources
or help us escape from predators. Given access to more resources, we survive
longer, and the chance of having offspring is bigger than that of an average
individual. These offspring normally will inherit our favorable trait and in
turn will have more chances of obtaining scarce resources and having offspring
and so on.
Setting
aside for the moment this interesting topic, we conclude that since we are just
one more living species we have to worry about the growth of our population to
avert a decline in our painstakingly conquered standards of living. It is true
that we managed to increase food production, but this will not last forever. If
populational growth continued forever, after some time, every inch of our
planet would be filled with people. Clearly, this is not possible. The solution
for this problem is education. In developed countries, education is better and
the population is already stable. Education and economic development are
urgently needed in poor countries, though. And if the developed countries don't
implement still better education , people in those countries will never be
aware of this threat.
Finally,
there is one more problem worth of serious concern in the near future: the
spread of nuclear weapons. There are now very poor and politically unstable
countries producing atomic bombs, as is the case of India and Pakistan. Soon,
countries like Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan will develop this technology.
Instability in the former USSR is itself dangerous, and as if this were not
enough, nuclear materials are being smuggled from there. Even terrorists may
have access to nuclear warheads in the future. The United States try energetically
to oppose this situation, but is actually the biggest nuclear power in the
world. Since international right has to be equal to all countries, it's
impossible to produce nuclear weapons and oppose the same action by other
countries without being hypocritical.
Would it
be any safer if only developed countries, like the United States, had nuclear
warheads? Are "underdeveloped" countries, like Pakistan, more
dangerous? If we think in the short term, the answer is yes, because it is
clear that the United States is more stable than Pakistan. In an intermediate
term, we will see that, up to this day, the United States is the only country
to have released nuclear weapons on other country, Japan. We also notice that
the United States is constantly involved in international conflicts. If we
think in the long term, we will conclude that the risk is the same regardless
of the country being considered. Given a sufficiently long time, an improbable
fact becomes a mathematical certainty. If we wait long enough, the United
States will detonate more nuclear weapons. Not even the United States is
fail-safe. At any time a bomb may explode due to a mistake or accident. Here
goes an example: asteroids fall on Earth every moment. Most of them don't reach
the ground, being burnt in the atmosphere. But some of them may explode at low
altitude or even make impact craters in the soil. An asteroid explosion might
be confused with a nuclear weapon explosion and be immediately retaliated. Some
people argue in favor of nuclear arms. They think such weapons paradoxically
brought a relatively peaceful phase after the Second World War. The reasoning
is that no superpower would be crazy enough to start a nuclear war, as it would
clearly be a suicide (Hitler and Saddam discounted!). However, as we see, long
term maintenance of nuclear weapons is a death sentence to humanity.
Once more,
education would be of enormous help in this case. People could be alerted in
two ways: first, we must know that much of our behavior is deeply rooted and is
at least in part conditioned by our genes. Aggression and a tendency to form
"us-against-them" groups is a feature present in our cousins, the
chimps. Our ancestors, some millions of years ago must already have had this
behavior. Today we form potentially dangerous groups, like rival groups of team
rooters, whites against blacks, Christians against Moslems, North against
South, left-winged politics against right-winged, Pakistan against India (or
vice-versa, no particular order meant). We need to understand that our
behaviors and emotions do not evolve as quickly as our technology. And our
present technology is powerful to do both good and evil. This leads us to the
second way by which people could be alerted. We badly need that everyone knows
what the destruction power of a nuclear weapon is. Any person should know that
a nuclear explosion fireball is many kilometers in length, and its temperature
is extremely high, and that the displacement of air caused by the explosion
crushes everything many miles around it. What is more, nuclear radiation would
bring starvation, epidemics and disease. In a few days, a massive nuclear war
would cause many fires. The flames and smoke would hide the Sun from view, and
the surface of the Earth would become dark and cold. After this chill, when
smoke gradually dispersed, the eventual survivors would be perpetually exposed
to high doses of lethal ultraviolet radiation coming from the Sun, as the ozone
layer would be completely destroyed.
I hope to
have persuaded you (I tried to avoid sensationalism discussing matters so
sensational!) of how important it is to get the highest number of people
educated. The solution for these horrible new problems depend crucially on the
educational level of the population. Moreover, many beneficial side effects
would ensue with improved education. Hatred and mysticism would diminish
encouragingly. Our society would cease to evolve blindly and would see the
world realistically not as an inexhaustible source given by the heavens.
In every nation today, the level of scientific
knowledge is very low, even among people with university degrees. Many college
students don’t know what exactly a molecule is. They commonly think dinosaurs
and humans lived side by side in the past. I like to tell people about
wonderful and simple ideas, like the enormous distances between stars. On
learning this, many become elated with a sense of wonder. I rarely talk about
relativity or quantum mechanics, because there are so many more basic unknown
ideas. I will certainly always have the humility to consider myself an
ignorant, and I don't like to sound pedantic when I talk about science; it's
just that it would be truly wonderful if everybody knew relativity theory! I
have seen too many intelligent people clinging to their prejudices and magical
beliefs. Ignorance about nature is what causes the temporal myopia so
widespread in our society. This generates very real costs that are not clearly
perceived. Externalities, some economists say. Knowing science we would be able
to internalize externalities. The market economy is perceived as being the real
world, but as Edward Wilson remarked, people should again be able to see the real
real world.
Paradoxically, although most people show a real
interest in understanding the world, lack of interest in science is almost
complete. My very personal opinion on this point is that the
adoption of simplistic worldviews makes many intelligent people accept
passively their monotonous jobs and lifestyles. Capitalism gave us a high
degree of human development, but now it needs to be changed and compensate
accordingly the most stimulating and important professions. There is something
wrong with our values when the best teachers earn low salaries, while the best
soccer players make millions (I'm not saying they earn money easily. What I
mean is that education is more important than entertainment). When we learn
about our place in the universe, we see that the things we find most important,
such as economic crises, religious wars and political intrigue in a sense are
not so important. As Carl Sagan used to say, Earth is a pale blue dot. The most
important matters to us are really those related to our understanding of the
world and ourselves. The reward for discovering so many wonders is immense, in
terms of human development and personal satisfaction. And this above all others
is the true importance of transmitting scientific knowledge.