Please use the comment facility on this page to list your ideals, many thanks, Steve.
Responses
1. I want to see people’s faith restored in science and the scientific method. It would be wonderful if more people understood the power of evidence, particularly the randomised, placebo-controlled double-blind trials in medical science.
2. Maybe I’m hopelessly too idealistic, but I wish people valued the truth more than they value the perception of truth.
3. It would be great if more people set their sights higher and realised their true potential. This requires work in many areas: parenting, education, absence of deprivation, peer-group and so on.
Some great thoughts there Rob. I suppose I would say that the failings of all three combine into the reason why the scientific method is not so respected anymore, as those who practice it with an outcome already in mind, or one bought by the need to enhance/support a reputation, or by greed, means that we lose faith in believing what we are told. When those who are meant to push the boundaries of science on our behalf are in fact found to be merely pretending to, held back by the business interests of more powerful groups, it takes our interest away.
I suppose my ideal would be that media actually lived up to its ’self-regulation’ that is meant to be imposed on it. The difference between solid research/bias/speculation/mindless gossip has been lost, to the detriment of all readers. While celebrity gossip is, by that nature, speculation, that attitude that journalists can write what they think, without the need to research has permeated too much of our press. Where is the learning anymore?
1. I want to see people’s faith restored in science and the scientific method. It would be wonderful if more people understood the power of evidence, particularly the randomised, placebo-controlled double-blind trials in medical science.
2. Maybe I’m hopelessly too idealistic, but I wish people valued the truth more than they value the perception of truth.
3. It would be great if more people set their sights higher and realised their true potential. This requires work in many areas: parenting, education, absence of deprivation, peer-group and so on.
By: Rob Collins on October 23, 2007
at 12:45 pm
Some great thoughts there Rob. I suppose I would say that the failings of all three combine into the reason why the scientific method is not so respected anymore, as those who practice it with an outcome already in mind, or one bought by the need to enhance/support a reputation, or by greed, means that we lose faith in believing what we are told. When those who are meant to push the boundaries of science on our behalf are in fact found to be merely pretending to, held back by the business interests of more powerful groups, it takes our interest away.
I suppose my ideal would be that media actually lived up to its ’self-regulation’ that is meant to be imposed on it. The difference between solid research/bias/speculation/mindless gossip has been lost, to the detriment of all readers. While celebrity gossip is, by that nature, speculation, that attitude that journalists can write what they think, without the need to research has permeated too much of our press. Where is the learning anymore?
By: toby on November 12, 2007
at 3:26 am