We’ve all pondered the above question when we’re perspiring over a science test and cursing every scientist who came up with the theories involved that we don’t remember. But really, why does science matter? Is it just a nugatory subject in school and a humdrum job prospect later? Let us investigate this with three questions.
What if “Mr Science” left humanity? An outrageous statement. Let’s be a bit more specific about this: what if the personification of all science disappeared from the Earth instantaneously? For starters, Elon Musk would probably stop tweeting about Tesla and SpaceX. And of course, we’d be propelled back to the time of the cavemen in an instant. We’d become a group of 7.8 billion cavemen with no means of taking any significant measures to do anything besides survive the way most animals do. Things as basic as lighting a fire, growing crops or running a vehicle having wheels, are a result of some scientific discovery. Almost every ubiquitous object that you can see around you is a direct result of some long-gone scientific discovery. That’s how closely intertwined science is with humanity’s past, present and future, and to imagine humanity without science is to imagine the impossible.
Let’s take another lunacy ridden question: what if we remained possessed of the science we have accrued so far, but lost the ability to discover or to come up with further progress in science? This question would probably take a bit of thinking: one might, at first, wonder, “Aren’t we fine the way things are?” You’d be surprised, however, that we’d spiral out of control. Science is responsible for a major portion of the growth that occurs, whether purely scientific or economical. Think of it this way: the reason most industries(from H&M to Cadbury) can continuously increase their value and churn out new products for us is dependent on scientific growth that enables them to do so and provides them with an incentive to continue growing. So stopping the growth of science would mean stopping almost all growth. Not just that, no advancements in the energy sector implies that we’ll burn up the planet along with everything on it in a couple of decades. A deeper, far more sinister ramification is yet left unaccounted for: war. If science stopped moving forward, the economy would stop moving forward, simply because the economy depends on the availability of resources, the majority of which, are exhaustible. The net amount of goods with monetary value remains static, or in the case of perishable goods, decreases. And in the frantic struggle to acquire enough goods to sustain oneself or one’s nation, the ploy that humanity has deployed for most of its history is waging war and conquering new lands. The problem, however, is that we do not have the means to conquer new lands(planets or the underground and underwater realms) and waging war, say, with nuclear weapons, implies the end of life as we know it for several million years. Shocking, right?
Let’s take one last question, a deeper question perhaps: how far HAVE we come, and how far do we have left to go? The first question has a simple enough answer, though astounding: in 0.133% of the time that the Earth has existed, we have gone from just another bunch of monkeys minding their business in Africa to a species with the power to shape the geography of the Earth and a little further. We have split atoms, formulated theories advanced enough to govern the motion of objects throughout the universe(kudos to Einstein) and invented a world wide web with which we can communicate with each other in mere seconds. We’ve mapped out the human genome, calculated the sum of all positive numbers till infinity(negative one-twelfth, can you believe it?!), sent a rocket to Mars, Pluto and beyond. We are legitimately the Gods of planet Earth, albeit a cantankerous bunch of them. Everyday objects that we take for granted are simply wonders: smartphones are impossibly smart for a species whose only advantage is a pair of opposable thumbs and the ability to communicate and believe in a common objective. We’re setting our sights on colonizing the nearest celestial objects and are harnessing(in part) the unlimited energy of the Sun and atomic particles. Yet, we are nowhere close to where we could be. An article on the AVM blog by Aarav Patel discussed the several tiers of civilization on the Kardashev scale. On this scale, humankind is still tier 0.73: we can’t utilize our own planet’s resources completely. Leaps forward await us: Dyson spheres and nuclear fusion, reverse ageing, black hole bombs and inter-galaxy energy utilization- you could make an Eminem rap song of all the possibilities humanity hasn't explored yet, and still have some leftover for a Rihanna solo. Jokes aside, humanity has light years to go, but the final component in ensuring that we reach our full potential is to ensure complete mutual acceptance: we can’t reach Andromeda if we’re too busy arguing over our skin colours.
~Ritwik Mishra
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