It's dropped off the front page now, so I'd like to bring your attention to Georg's comment, in which she brings my attention to an article written from a journalist's point of view that, to my simple mind at least, is right on the money.
Here's an excerpt to give you the flavour of the article, but you should really go and read it:
Relativity and quantum mechanics have been around for nearly a century, yet they remain confusing in some sense even to those who understand these theories well. We know they’re correct because they’ve been tested so thoroughly in so many ways. But they still don’t make sense.On the other hand, why should they? Humans evolved to procreate, eat, and avoid getting eaten. The fact that we have learned to understand what atoms are all about or what the universe was back to a nanosecond after its birth is literally unbelievable. But the universe doesn’t care what we can or cannot believe. It doesn’t speak our language, so there’s no reason it should “make sense.”
That’s why science depends on evidence.
. . .
Science is also innately uncertain. What makes science strong is that these uncertainties are out there in the open, spelled out and quantified.It’s essential to know not only what scientists know, but also what they know they don’t know. This is an unfamiliar concept to editors used to dealing with politics or sports.
Ignorance might not be bliss, but it drives my day job.
