I hope no one will consider me unduly cynical if I assert that a good first-order model of how commercial and public television programming work is simply this: Money is everything.

In a world in transition, students and teachers both need to teach themselves one essential skill-learning how to learn.

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the Unites States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The cure for a misuse of science is not censorship, but clearer explanation, more vigorous debate, and making science accessible to everyone.

But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize “facts.” By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost so much of the wonder, and gained very little skepticism. They’re worried about asking “dumb” question; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in.
Something has happened between first and twelfth grade, and it’s not just puberty. I’d guess that it’s partly peer pressure not to excel (except in sports); partly that the society teaches short-term gratification; partly the impression that science or mathematics won’t buy you a sports car; partly that so little is expected from students; and partly that there are few rewards or role models for intelligent discussion of science and technology-or even for learning for its own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified and “nerds” or “geeks” or “grinds.

Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.

How much more satisfying had we been placed in a garden custom-made for us, its other occupants put there for us to use as we saw fit. There is a celebrated story in the Western tradition like this, except that not quite everything was there for us. There was one particular tree of which we were not to partake, a tree of knowledge. Knowledge and understanding and wisdom were forbidden to us in this story. We were to be kept ignorant. But we couldn’t help ourselves. We were starving for knowledge - we were created hungry, you might say. This was the origin of all our troubles. In particular, it is why we no longer live in a garden: We found out too much. So long as we were incurious and obedient, I imagine, we could console ourselves with our importance and centrality, and tell ourselves that we were the reason the Universe was made. As we began to indulge our curiosity, though, to explore, to learn how the Universe really is, we were expelled from Eden. Angels with flaming arrows were set as sentries at the gates of Paradise to bar our return. The gardeners became exiles and wanderers. Occasionally, we mourn that lost world, but that, it seems to me, is maudlin and sentimental. We could not happily have remained ignorant forever.