We live in a culture that hates ignorance. We are told to educate ourselves about Darfur, Global Warming, Fossil Fuels, Stem Cells, and every other issue of the day. This is absolutely terrible advice, and probably causes far more harm than good.
The volume of knowledge produced by western civilization in the past hundred years alone is simply astonishing. No person could possibly be expected to be aware of it all, much less understand or comprehend it. Even in a single field, like mathematics, it’s impossible for one person to understand everything. Take an expert topologist and a smart undergrad, and put them both through a class on number theory. It’s a tossup on who’ll do better. Hell, I’d probably bet on the undergrad, because there’s a chance she’s actually interested in number theory. Is the topologist ignorant of number theory? Yes. Is this a bad thing? I certainly don’t think so. No reasonable mathematician would look down upon the topologist for not knowing much about an area in which she isn’t trained. She would certainly be criticized, however, if she presented herself as understanding number theory even though she didn’t. Among mathematicians, Ignorance is fine, as long as you’re aware that you’re ignorant and don’t try to disguise the fact.
Unfortunately, our culture doesn’t adhere to the same standard as mathematicians; Ignorance is roundly criticized as a ‘bad’ thing, to be ‘fought’ with ‘knowledge.’ Global Warming is a perfect example. Ask anyone whether the earth is getting warmer, and they’ve probably got an answer for you. Do they understand what they’re really saying? Not a chance in hell, unless they’ve done serious study in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and climatology. That certainly doesn’t stop people from forming opinions about subjects that they fundamentally don’t understand. It doesn’t really matter if people spout nonsense about number theory (although it might bother the number theorists.) But when people start forming opinions and voting based upon science that they fundamentally don’t understand, bad things happen. If global warming is really a problem, all the people who are convinced that it isn’t are standing in the way of fixing it. If global warming isn’t a problem, all the people who claim that it is are poised to inflict serious damage to the economy.
I’m not saying that Global Warming isn’t happening – I’m saying I’m not qualified to answer that question, and neither is 99.9% of the population. Unfortunately, it seems like many people who aren’t qualified to answer the question have decided to so. Take a stand for ignorance – accept that you understand very little of the world outside your area of expertise, and be proud of this! I’d much rather live in a culture of ignorant people who are aware of their ignorance than a culture of ignorant people who consider themselves to be educated.