Pharyngula::It’s more than just math
“The real problem is that so many people want the shortcut to the “right” answer (although students will change their tune when it’s a matter of me going blind this weekend trying to decipher chicken scratches in blue books to give partial credit for applying the right method to a genetics problem, even if the final answer was off.) It’s Bronowski’s conflict between knowledge and certainty: most people prefer certainty, especially when knowledge might give them an answer they don’t like. And they especially favor certainty when it requires nothing more than learning a single datum, rather than the work it takes to do a calculation or derivation or document a chain of evidence.”
This is exactly the division in America right now between the left and the right. The right want to be certain of everything – God exists, he told us how to live, Keynes and Adam Smith told us all we need to know about economics, parenting is just a matter of telling your kids to just say no to sex, drugs and rock and roll. The left want to learn and want to know how things really work in the world. They are open to thought, to experimentation, to trying something and seeing if it works. Who is more adaptable to change? Who is more adaptable to the realities of the world? Who will be able to lead us into the future, where so many things are unknown and unknowable? I think that’s pretty clear.