We don’t all need to be Einsteins or even physicists to appreciate how light behaves or to understand something profound about the nature of space and time, in just the same way we don’t need to have studied vaccinology to understand that getting a flu jab will protect us. We can stand on the shoulders of giants, lean on the strengths and knowledge of others who have put in the years to gain expertise that can then be shared with the rest of us. So, even if we encounter something we don’t understand right away, we can still make an effort and take some time to try. Sometimes it is for no better reason than to expand our minds; sometimes it can help us make a decision that will benefit us in our daily lives. Either way, we are the richer for it.
“I want to be consumed in any way he wants to take me."
The real world is messy and often far too complicated to simplify. There is a well-known joke—to physicists, at any rate—about a dairy farmer who wishes to find a way of increasing the milk production of his cows and so seeks the help of a team of theoretical physicists. After carefully studying the problem, the physicists finally tell him they have found a solution, but that it only works if they assume a spherical cow in a vacuum.
Not everything can be made simpler.
How many times have you gotten into an argument with a friend, colleague or family member—or, even worse, with a stranger on social media—and stated what you thought was a clear-cut fact, only to hear the response, “Well, that’s your view”, or “That’s one way of looking at it”? These responses—often polite, sometimes aggressive—are examples of the insidious and disturbingly common phenomenon of ‘post-truth’. Defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” post-truth has become so prevalent that the term was ‘word of the year’ in 2016. Have we moved too far away from objective truth, to the extent that even proven facts about the world can be conveniently dismissed if we don’t like them?
“I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased. That’s because what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it. Opportunities,
relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.”
Oprah Winfrey (B. 1954) MEDIA PERSONALITY AND BUSINESSWOMAN
I start to push past him, but he grips me by the hips, his fingers teasing.
“Let me go. I’m pissed off at you right now.”
He nuzzles his nose in my cheek. “I told you, we can be mad at each other while I touch you.”
I melt in the way he drags his nose down my throat. My body ignites to life.
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And even if the researchers themselves don’t have biases or motives, then their paymasters and funders will. Needless to say, I find such an appraisal overly cynical. While those who carry out the science, or indeed those who pay their salaries, will almost inevitably not be value-free, the scientific knowledge that they gain should be. And this is because of the way the scientific method works: self-correcting, building on firm foundations of what has already been established as factually correct, being subject to scrutiny and falsification, reliant on reproducibility, and so on.
"At that time, there seemed to be no possible way my desires could come true."
"The most effective way to guarantee health, other than taking good care of yourself physically, is to continue to be grateful for your health."
"The easiest and simplest way to ensure that your day ahead will be filled with magic is to fill your morning with gratitude."