Marie Skłodowska-Curie was the first woman to ever win a Nobel
Prize in Science, the only human being ever to do so in two sciences, and an
icon and true immortalizer of Polish culture. Curie’s research into radioactive
isotopes centered primarily on locating them and using them to cure disease, so
I’m fairly certain she never said, “Hey man, lemme slip some radium in your
drink. This stuff freaking glows.”
So while
I agree with Chet Raymo’s point that man should approach possibly dangerous scientific
advances with “a measure of restraint,” I’m a bit irritated that he criticizes
my home girl Marie. In contrast to Raymo, I believe that the answer to freakish
glowing tobacco plants and the eventual advent of “Frankensteinian” glowing
humans is not less science, but more.
Albert
Einstein once said, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The import thing is not to stop questioning.” In a few clauses, he sums up the
very nature of science: to question and test the validity of the theories,
technologies, and processes that govern our world.
Perhaps
if America mandated a more rigorous and real-world-based science curriculum for
K-12 students, taught them about science’s failures as well as its triumphs, and
didn’t save all the good teachers for only the students motivated enough to
take APs, we would create a society more inclined “to question.” In
Finland—ranked second in the world for science scores—teachers are among the
most respected in their fields, and students spend a lot of time out of doors,
exploring the natural world—which I’m sure Raymo would approve of. If we took a
leaf from Finland’s book, we would no longer have a generation of mindless
consumers, but a generation of avid thinkers—a generation of Marie Curies—who question
the products and scientific advances being shoved down their throats, and try
to aid mankind and respect the natural world.
Quench
their thirst with knowledge, and they will be wise enough to know what must be
restrained, and what simply cannot be held from the world.
Wow, Katie. This post was so well written. You defend your perspective so well, with so much voice, and so much hilarity. I agree, science and knowledge are what could have saved Curie, even though they were also what killed her. Science is the ultimate weapon humanity wields, and to ignore it would be a blunder from which this species would not recover.
ReplyDelete