"If you start any large theory, such as quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, it takes about 40 years for mainstream science to come around." ~James Lovelock
There is no easy way to possibly start on all these topics, so I will let Stephen Hawing and Leonard Mldoinow explain. This is an excerpt from their book, "The Grand Design" (2010), which I highly highly recommend.
"We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. The purpose of this book is to give the answers that are suggested by recent discoveries and theoretical advances. They lead us to a new picture of the universe and our place in it that is very different from the traditional one, and different even from the picture we might have painted just a decade or two ago. Still, the first sketches of the new concept can be traced back almost a century." (Pg 5-6)
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. The purpose of this book is to give the answers that are suggested by recent discoveries and theoretical advances. They lead us to a new picture of the universe and our place in it that is very different from the traditional one, and different even from the picture we might have painted just a decade or two ago. Still, the first sketches of the new concept can be traced back almost a century." (Pg 5-6)
As Hawking and Mldoinow will go on to explain, like many of the ideas coming out of the scientific community now, these discoveries defy common sense. But common sense is simply everyday, mundane, experience. That's why we wonder why some people don't seem to have the same 'common sense' we do. It is not based on the nature of the universe that has been revealed through science, and that unlike the complicated reality some people would like you to believe in, 9-5 mon-fri, buying stuff to impress enemies, beauty, fashion, politics...war, the nature of the universe is much more simple and far less complex then it lets on, but boy it holds a vast depth.
It takes time for ideas, especially these new ideas to spread, but we're entering a very fast exponential explosion of growth as we will discuss later. So the real problem these days, is keeping up with the changes and we all know how full of distractions life can get. As quoted above "the first sketches of (this) new concept can be traced back almost a century" and I'm not sure most people understand just how different things were as little as 100 years ago. In 1913 for example:
Reflect on those for a moment. Only 100 years ago, 1913, everyone thought the world was only millions of years old. The modern world of which we all know and love did not exist in almost every way. Can you imagine not living with your cell phone? How about thinking that light bulbs would never be big, and using them would probably make you go blind?
It takes time for ideas, especially these new ideas to spread, but we're entering a very fast exponential explosion of growth as we will discuss later. So the real problem these days, is keeping up with the changes and we all know how full of distractions life can get. As quoted above "the first sketches of (this) new concept can be traced back almost a century" and I'm not sure most people understand just how different things were as little as 100 years ago. In 1913 for example:
- Women couldn't vote or attend Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth or Columbia
- Federal income tax was just introduced in November and stainless steel gets invented in August
- Mass production begins as Henry Ford installs the first ever production factory conveyor belt in America
- A brand new paradigm shift begins as British geologist Arthur Holmes discovers that the Earth is billions, not millions, of years old
- In 1903 Nelson Jackson and Sewall Crocker were honored as the first to cross the United States in an automobile. Their trip lasted 63 days.
Reflect on those for a moment. Only 100 years ago, 1913, everyone thought the world was only millions of years old. The modern world of which we all know and love did not exist in almost every way. Can you imagine not living with your cell phone? How about thinking that light bulbs would never be big, and using them would probably make you go blind?
"By 1910, more than 30 years after Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb in 1879, only about 10 percent of American homes had been wired. Even in the glittering Roaring Twenties, only about 20 percent of homes had electricity -- not because of a lack of electrical contractors, but because of a lack of consumer enthusiasm.
Advertisers proclaimed that homes with electricity would be brighter, cozier and happier, but the public wasn't buying."
"Besides the cost, consumers just weren't convinced that this new technology was safe. Light bulbs seemed so glaringly bright compared with the soft glow of gaslight. Rumor had it that you could go blind reading by incandescent light. In fact, doctors identified a new disease (later debunked): photo-electric ophthalmia, which caused pain and excessive tearing."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/new-light-bulb-battle-a-breeze-compared-with-edison-s-echoes.html
Advertisers proclaimed that homes with electricity would be brighter, cozier and happier, but the public wasn't buying."
"Besides the cost, consumers just weren't convinced that this new technology was safe. Light bulbs seemed so glaringly bright compared with the soft glow of gaslight. Rumor had it that you could go blind reading by incandescent light. In fact, doctors identified a new disease (later debunked): photo-electric ophthalmia, which caused pain and excessive tearing."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/new-light-bulb-battle-a-breeze-compared-with-edison-s-echoes.html
Pretty hard to imagine hu? We've become attached to our technology. Some people think Cyborgs are in our distant future, but, by definition, that is what we have already become. Sure you could make due without some of the technologies of your everyday life, just like a computer can make do without a graphics card. But could you survive without any of them? No computer, no cell phone; for some, no car, no heat, no electricity. These technologies have become a part of us. The majority of the world is life or death dependent on technology and as it develops, information and discoveries begin happening faster and faster. The future is coming, and it's coming way faster then we think. Here's a video interview under 5 minutes with Ray Kurzweil to explain:
The problem with this is that the books you studied from in High School, 15, 10, even 5 years ago, have changed. The information becomes outdated, and it takes effort for us as individual's to keep up with the booming growth of Information Technology on our own dime. Every single one of our fields of science are becoming "Information Technologies" and experiencing a state of exponential growth as Ray mentioned. One of our other major problems is far more personal to each of us. As Samual Arbesman puts it, we are "intellectually stubborn." Here's a paragraph from his blog entry titled, "Why Do Great Ideas Take So Long to Spread?":
"Clearly, science and business, and others fields of knowledge are not abstract ventures. They're human affairs, so they're prone to passions and biases. Scientific discovery, in particular, occurs through hunches and chance recognition of relationships, and is enriched by spirited discussion and debate around the lab. But science is also subject to our baser instincts. Data are hoarded, scientists refuse to collaborate, and grudges can play a role in peer review. There's a lot at play."
I also highly recommend another of his entries entitled: "Be Forewarned: Your Knowledge is Decaying". Here's a clip:
"It turns out knowledge is a lot like radioactive atoms because it decays over time. And when we're dealing with large amount of facts and information, we can actually predict how long it will take for it to spread or decay by applying the laws of mathematics. In fact, there's even a field of science called scientometrics that studies such things from a quantitative perspective. We now know that there is a shape to how knowledge grows and how it spreads through a population. We can also examine different branches of knowledge — medicine, sociology, etc. — and see how long it takes for half of what we know in these fields to be overturned or rendered obsolete. For example, in the fields of hepatitis and cirrhosis — medical fields related to diseases of the liver — researchers have found that half of the knowledge was overturned in about 45 years."
The other major problem with the spreading of new ideas, theories, and information is often times the resistance to a change in dogma. Yale surgeon Dr. Bernie S. Siegal, author of "Love, Medicine, and Miracles" says this is the case because people are addicted to their beliefs. Which is why when you try to change someone's belief they act much the same way an addict does. This is perhaps why so many of civilization's greatest insights and advances have at first been greeted with such passionate denial. This can been seen in the 3 stages that scientific knowledge moves through.
Think about all the things we know and take for "common sense" today that we didn't know 100 years ago. How often do you even think about the fact that you are standing on a planet, in an arm of the milky way galaxy, which in itself has 400 billion stars in it. Floating around in a universe that contains 30 billion trillion (3x10²²) stars...and those are just the ones we can see with our current technology. All of that is accepted common knowledge.
- Did you know that we humans, have officially confirmed that a spaceship we designed is now floating around in interstellar space?
- Scientists discovered a new element just this year!
- Scientists invented a self-healing polymer
- The worlds thinnest glass was invented....at one molecule thick.
- The worlds first natural example of a functioning gear mechanism (cog wheels) have been discovered in a common insect
- There is a new model and theory for the beginning of the universe....which does not involve the big bang
- Scientists have discovered how to cloak an object from time itself
Fact is, information moves fast these days. Really fast, and that's an even bigger problem when the vast majority of the people in the world are not internet savvy, 15 years after the Internet went exponential in its growth. Most people do not feel the need to continue their education outside of college, and some even past high school. If you want to learn just how fast information (and technology) travels, watch this video, started at 2:47, for 3 minutes or so, it's over an hour long.
The discovery of a round earth, the invention of the light bulb, or the shift to transistors from vacuum tubes, isn't nearly as ground shattering as a paradigm shift to someone's entire understanding of reality. But thankfully, with this crisis of information also comes it's solution. If we are curious, intellectually honest with ourselves and open-minded, the same technology that creates so much information, can also be used to help us keep up with it.