Sometime circa A.D. 2007, an unsolicited question was sent to me with the mildly ungrammatical title of WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY? I did not recognize the man’s name, nor did he say for what publication, if any, he wished my response.
His somewhat leading question read:
As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic. Science figures out how things work and thus can make them work better. Much of the news is either good news or news that can be made good, thanks to ever deepening knowledge and ever more efficient and powerful tools and techniques. Science, on its frontiers, poses more and ever better questions, ever better put.
What are you optimistic about? Why? Surprise us!
Since this view of science, much less the scientific community, could not be further from the truth, I was at somewhat of a loss.
I wonder if the ever-better questions, ever-better put, now being asked by the ever more powerful tools and techniques of science now include “How Ungoodthink a Shirt was the First Scientist Who Landed a Probe on a Comet-head Wearing?”
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