January 1st - Season of Reason Day 8 -The New Year

January 1st
Season of Reason Day 8
The New Year

As we start a new year, take this time to reflect on the past year and set goals for the year ahead.  Gather friends and family for a final celebration of our cosmic connectedness and the gifts that science has given us in the last year. Make plans to learn, grow, and contribute to the world of science.

Our Final Celebration
Gather your friends and family for a potluck meal.  Take some time to honor the heros of science and their discoveries of the last year.  Reflect on how technology can bring us closer together and make our lives better and how it can drive us apart.  What scientific discoveries and inventions from the last year should be celebrated?  Use the hashtag #ScienceHero so we can all learn about these amazing discoveries of science and technology.

Final Thought
Your mission this next year is to think. 

Use your brain. 

Use reason and logic to solve problems. When you encounter a new idea or technology, don’t react with fear and distrust. When you hear a claim that sounds too good to be true, investigate it. You hold the repository of mankind’s collective intelligence and wisdom in your hands. USE IT! We are living in a wonderful time. Humanity’s collective knowledge is available to anyone with a network connection.


Carl Sagan once said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” When you hear someone make a statement that sounds too good to be true, investigate it. Do not trust what an authority figure or a talking head on TV tells you, investigate it and decide for yourself. There are many people in this world that have interests other than the quest for objective truth. 


We have a choice between two worlds. One is based on superstition and fear that wants to control people and limit their progress for whatever selfish reason and the other world is based on reason, critical thinking, the Scientific Method, and progress. On a daily basis we can see both worlds side by side. The fearful world beheads people for believing other subjective truths and oppresses women in the name of tradition. The reasonable world feeds people, cures diseases, and increases our connection with one another. 


History has shown us what the world based on superstition and fear looks like. It looks like the Dark Ages in Europe. It looks like Eastern Europe in 1943. It looks like Africa crippled by the AIDS epidemic. It looks like ISIS and al-Qaeda. It looks like Ethiopia in 1980’s. It looks like female genital mutilation. It looks like human slavery. It is the worst of human instinct. 


History has also shown us what we can accomplish when we embrace the tools we were given by the giants who came before us. We landed people on the moon, explored the solar system, linked the world together with communication, and discovered the subatomic world. But it isn’t just about lofty achievements as a species, we can make our own lives better as well. We can cure diseases, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless. We have the tools to do it. They were given to us by Descartes and Bacon with the Scientific Method.


You have your mission. Think, debate, research, analyze, and conclude. Use your brain to find the objective truth that might just save the world or someone you care about.