Science can't save us. Well, that's the short answer. And if I already knew the answer, why even ask the question? The answer is that it's not just about whether, it's also about why. So why is it that science can't save us?
First, it is simply too ideologically burdened (it aims to describe, not explain, and certainly not to solve), it has a overly strong materialistic bias (except for a certain class of physicists), and it is far too concerned with itself. Second, science is mostly about knowledge, I suppose ... well, at least it used to be. We would know things, like how the world works, why the sky is blue and more recently that matter and energy are conserved, but who cares? Yes, that's the third reason. What do you do with knowledge? Most of it sits on the shelves of libraries, a lot of can be found on the Internet these days, but what do you do with it. The true scientist really doesn't care. The main thing is figuring it out. To the scientist, just about everything else is simply uninteresting.
There we are. Science is telling us that we hurtling toward The End. It can say, “Hey, you'd better stop burning fossil fuels or creating so much pollution.” but it's not their job, and they certainly don't see it as their job, to tell us how to solve the problem. They only answer questions they ask themselves. Other people's questions are for the most part, distracting.
No, science can't save us. It's not in its mind-set. So, if science itself isn't going to jump in and help, who can or will. And this brings us to technology, which we'll look at more closely next time.
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