[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Probably lack of education and laziness.
Coberst expounded on the value of a "quest for disinterested knowledge". There is a whole lot of people that aren't interest in learning anything besides the sports scores, or what time Wheel of Fortune is on, if it doesn't relate to their job.

Quite so, and as HLJ points out here, that problem will be with us forever. Its just really discouraging when even our government encourages it as has happened with the Bush administration.

There is the problem that scientific knowledge is a moving target, constantly being updated, often changing what they previously thought was true. If you just catch the headlines, it can lead to confusion and mistrust of the scientific community.
For example, I'm hearing a lot of that about Global Warming. People saying, hey they said global cooling was a problem, then warming is a problem... those scientists don't know shit.

Hmmm. Good point. Another aspect of that problem is that its hard to trust the motivations behind the people or organizations that are coming up with all these 'new knowledge' bits and pieces....for instance how one day a group of food is considered bad for you, and then the next day its great for you - you just wonder how much that particular food lobby paid for that bit of reporting. Just like the fundies would assign motive to the people who espouse evolutionary theory.