Today, the last proper class, I talked about why we sleep. Yet another profoundly important and interesting question science has so far failed to answer.
It occurred to me while putting the session together: I have taught the students much more about what science has failed to discover than what it has discovered. I did start with a couple of success stories: worm infections do reduce school performance, smoking is bad for you. And I added a couple more later on (Vaccine safety and efficacy, Bacteria cause gastric ulcers).
But for the rest of semester, I reveled in ignorance, doubt, dispute and uncertainty. Prayer, GM safety, Doctors who kill, Dark matter, Dark energy, High fructose corn syrup, Genomic predictors of self, Why people can’t intuit probability, Autism, Gay animals, Climate projections, Nano-safety, Aliens, Battle of the sexes, Climate politics, Zombies, Microbiome, Immortality, Cancer, Obesity-causing viruses…so much darkness.
I bet none of the students ever had a science class oozing so much ignorance.