MOST of the things one learns at school can, with a bit of adaptation, be carried through life, so that, say, the odd phrase or two one picked up in French is still serviceable decades later.
Of course, the world changes politically, but the basics of geography, history, etc remain the same – Everest is still pretty much the same height and the Norman Conquest did happen in 1066.
Thinking may change in the way reading is taught, or how S
hakespeare wrote his plays, but the words and the plays remain the same.
However, science is, as they say, a whole different ballgame.
When I was at school there were no computers, no Internet, not everyone had a television and the first rockets had only recently been launched into space.
A combination of things made me think about this over the last week or so.
First, there was a good bit of snow on Easter Day – one of those landmark moments when you wonder whether there really is something to all the doom and gloom about global climate changes.
Then there was this big debate about whether to allow the creation of part-human, part-animal embryos for medical research.
Finally, I was watching the rather good TV adaptation of The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, when a middle-aged mechanic was praising an old car because when you opened the bonnet, you could recognise what you saw.
It struck me that my knowledge of scientific matters, always a bit sketchy, is now almost out-of-touch with the real world.
I can't do more than the most basic tasks in looking after my car – and it's not a very new one. If it was, I doubt if I could understand any of it any more.
I can't decide whether I believe in the more radical predictions on global warming because I don't understand the science any more.
I can't even make up my mind whether I am in favour of the latest embryo research because I can't get my head around the implications of it.
I could follow the blind belief of the Catholics that a soul has been created the moment an egg is fertilised, or I could trust the scientists that nothing approaching life would have been attained by the time the resultant embryo is dispensed with.
I simply don't know and I doubt if I would be able to understand any attempt to enlighten me.
It strikes me that, for the non-scientists (of which I am definitely one), we are not much better off than a medieval person trying to decide whether the world is round or whether the soul is seated in the heart.
Now I know scientists are in much the same position on many issues, just a bit further down the road.
They no more know whether dark matter really exists than their counterparts 300 years ago knew whether there really was such a thing as phlogiston, the substance they imagined was given off during burning.
But that's all a bit theoretical. The stuff that I don't understand is a bit more practical and important here and now.
If, by some obscure chance, I were to be alive 30 years from now (and the earth were not burning up), I might feel equally wrong to have supported the embryo research if it eventually created something monstrous, or not to have supported it if it turned out to save millions of lives with no side-effects whatever.
The simplest solution is not to worry about it and let other people get on with making these sorts of decision for us, but I can't help feeling that is an abdication of one's humanity.
These are surely things we all ought to be worried about, because they concern us all, and our descendants.
There are plenty of things which have gone wrong down the years which we might wish our ancestors had done more to prevent – back to climate change again, if it really is true.
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