Science is boring – TecMundo

*This text was written by a TecMundo columnist; Learn more at the end.

Despite the title, this is a column of Sciences, Which aims to disseminate not only scientific knowledge about physics, but also the way of thinking and doing science.

The title statement does not mean that science is unimportant or that we should not care what scientists and researchers tell us. The point here is just to say that, compared to the stories our minds can make up, science is really boring.

This happens because scientists, in general, when they disclose a work or research result, are usually not as assertive as someone telling an interesting personal story that happened last week, for example.

Scientific discoveries don’t always attract attentionsource: stock struggle

Our minds are drawn to statistical data that is able to make highly accurate predictions about events that do not necessarily affect us directly or immediately, compared to things that affect our emotions or that may pose an imminent threat.

Let’s take a look at the state of global warming. Looking at the latest UN report, the period between 2015 and 2021 was the warmest on record in history, with an average temperature of 1.17°C (with a margin of error of 0.13°C) higher than the temperatures recorded before the industrial period, Which proves that human interference in carbon emissions is responsible for the increasing temperature increase of our planet.

So if we, as a species, don’t reduce our carbon footprint, we will have the hottest year in history over and over again, Which can cause more and more disasters and extreme weather events, as well as irreversible changes to our ecosystem. These changes would, for example, impair the ability to predict rainfall which is essential to our agricultural production.

These last two paragraphs are, at the same time, tragic and very important and are examples of the moot point in this text.

For many people, this topic, with its predictions of events that will not affect our lives from now on, is less interesting and captivating and more abstract than thinking that NGOs fighting deforestation are actually Those responsible for setting fires to forests so that they can demand money and do the fight against the deforestation caused by it.

This kind of narrative, which blames a group or person for a global problem that must be discussed and claimed by all the citizens and governments of the world, brings more comfort, a dose of intrigue so dear to our species. Moreover, narratives that do not adhere to the truth or support their claims (unlike science) have the wonderful potential of answering very complex questions with simple answers.

Complex problems often have solutions that are difficult to understand, since sometimes a theoretical and empirical basis is required to develop a good answer. This usually takes time and a process with inevitable errors and corrections, which is much more tedious than listening to a simple and intriguing story with a single culprit that solves, at least on the surface, all our problems. Despite all this, we can’t help but continue to advocate for boredom.

Rodolfo Lima Barros Souza, professor of physics and columnist at TecMundo. He holds a Physics degree and a Master’s degree in Science Teaching and Mathematics from Unicamp in the field of General Science Perception. He is on social networks with the name @rodolfo.sou