Children are not the problem
Neil Tyson is optimistic about society's reception to science and technology. And the children who are our future are not the problem. It's the adults.
Morning Smoke
Several weeks ago I was getting my son, Ben, up in the morning to go to school. Ben is 8 and in the third grade. I walked into Ben’s room as he slept and announced that; “Here’s everything you need this morning” (to get up and dressed for school). A sleepy little boy voice said: “Did you bring me a drink?” The voice quickly continued: “How about world peace, Daddy did you bring me World Peace?” “Uh, no,” I said. “Then you DIDN”T bring me everything I need, did you?” said Ben. “Daddy, you need to be more precise in your language.” Truer words were never spoken out of the mouth of babes. After I had finished giving my schmarty-pants son some noogies, hugs and kisses and getting some of my own, I replied. “How many times has daddy said that to you, Ben?” “At least a Hundred Million Times!” said Ben. “But, now I GOT YOU!” Ben gloated. “HAH!” I left Ben to finish his dressing and went downstairs and found my daughter Bella (short for Isabella) watching TV. Bella is 11 and fascinated by whodunits, often getting the culprit before I do. Bella was watching a DVR’d episode of “Bones” which features a beautiful brilliant woman forensic anthropologist, a hunky FBI agent and a bevy of interesting other characters who solve murders using human remains as clues. They all work at something called the Jefferson Institute. “Daddy, why does “Bones” give the FBI guy trouble for believing in God?” said Bella. [more . . . ]
Measuring subjective happiness
In the January 29, 2010 issue of Science (available online only to subscribers), Richard Layard considers whether subjective reports are valid ways of measuring the well-being of a population. After all, we've been hearing some rather extraordinary findings of studies over the years based upon subjective happiness. For instance, studies consistently show that higher national income does not increase "quality of life," (defined by subjective happiness). In fact, based on studies relying on subjective judgment, there has been no increase in happiness over the past 50 years in the United States. Layard asks a fundamental question: "Can subjective well-being really be measured well enough to be used in policy analyses?" Even though the science of measuring happiness is "very young," Layard indicates that subjective measures of happiness are well correlated with at least five relevant sets of variables:
The reports of friends; the possible causes of well-being; some possible effects of well-being; physical functioning, such as levels of cortisol; and measures of brain activity.
There is good reason to be optimistic that we will get better at measuring happiness. "Fifty years ago, there was considerable debate on how to measure depression, but by now this has become much less controversial in all likelihood, the measurement of happiness will become similarly less controversial." As we fine-tune our methods of measuring of subjective happiness, Layard believes we will be better able to monitor trends of happiness, we will deal to identify problem groups within populations and we will be better able to determine why some people are happy and others are not. Better measurements will certainly allow us determine quality of life better than the many efforts to do so in terms of money. What's at stake according to Layard? As we leave behind our crude financial measurements of the quality of life and continue to develop better methods of measuring subjective happiness, "it will produce very different priorities for our society."The thrill and challenge of not knowing
In this thought-provoking video, physicist Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, S. James Gates, Jr., and Freeman Dyson discuss the joy of living without knowing everything, thus minimizing falsehoods: