“Damned Fools Won’t Pay 10 Minutes Attention to Science and Technology…”

So if you’ve read this blog, you know I am more than displeased at how Science is reported in the media, and how little credit is given to the work of scientists.

People find Science boring. And while I do sympathize sometimes, at other times I get pretty frustrated.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I’m a big Sci-Fi/Fantasy geek. I just started reading “Lucifer’s Hammer” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Its about a comet which strikes Earth and civilization needs to rebuild. Pretty cool.

Photo from Wikipedia

There is one part near the start of the story where a news reporter is speaking with an Astronomer. It sums up my feelings really well, so I thought I would share it with all of you:

“Yet the damned fools won’t pay ten minutes’ attention a day to science and technology. How many people know what they’re doing?

Where do these carpets come from? The clothes you’re wearing? What do carburetors do? Where do sesame seeds come from?

Do you know? Does one voter out of thirty? They won’t spend ten minutes a day thinking about the technology that keeps them alive. No wonder the research budget has been cut to nothing. We’ll pay for that. One day we’ll need something that could have been developed years before but wasn’t -“

And get ready for my next post, its gonna quite a rant…