A science test and the knowledge explosion
The 2016 Globe and Mail science quiz came out December 29 and I failed it. The Globe publishes an annual science quiz as a year-end review of new discoveries and research. I just barely passed in 2015 with an 11/20. This year in the 2016 quiz I failed with an 8/20. While I have no idea how others would do on this quiz, my score horrified me, given I write a science column for this paper.
I think I keep up with much of the science information in my work by scanning both major general science journals and journals specific to my particular area of science. If the results of the quiz are any indication, there is a lot I still miss in my weekly science survey.
In the neuroscience field, we use Medline as our search engine. Medline is a free database from the National Institute of Health that lists all the medically relevant science articles. It permits me to find articles on topics important for my research. In 1970 Medline had about a million articles, in 2015 it had over 22 million, and it is now adding about a million new references each year. Keeping up with this amount of science is difficult, even with good data-searching tools like Medline.
But it is not just the amount of science information that is exploding. The amount of information in general available to us is increasing rapidly. A 2011 article in Science suggested that globally stored information grows at 28 percent per year. The news channels on television tell us nightly about a new horror in some area of the globe. The number of new music groups formed each year is such that I cannot keep up with all the wonderful, creative new jazz being produced each year. Of course, after the last American election, we now know we have to learn how to deal with fake-news as well as an overwhelming amount of true news.
Or think of social media. On Facebook my wife keeps up with the day-to-day lives of our family and with friends all over the continent. Facebook is a wonderful technology to help keep us connected, but again it adds way more information than we would have seen even only 20 years ago. I remember watching as a child as my mother wrote a weekly airmail letter to her parents in Holland. Now we have FaceTime and Skype. Apparently, the number of blogs on the internet is doubling every six months.
Living in a sea of information
Much of this information is not necessary for our daily lives, but its availability changes how we deal with information. If we do not know something, we can Google it and amazingly the information can be quickly found. I could have searched the Internet to find the answers to my science quiz and easily scored 20 out of 20. How important is it to know the answers to these science questions when they are available at the fingertips of anyone with a computer or smart phone?
As we move into a new year, reflecting on the past and looking ahead, it’s very apparent that the amount of new knowledge generated each year is overwhelming. Nobody can keep up with all of today’s knowledge or science. This knowledge explosion is not going to stop, so we have to determine how to live in a sea of information by focusing on what is important and necessary.
Our Father, who continuously upholds the whole cosmos, is the only one able to have a complete understanding of his creation. I know that God’s love is all encompassing to the point that about 2,000 year ago, he entered the world as a child born of displaced persons, had to flee for his life and walked among us until his death and resurrection. He knows us all, and our world, better than we ever can. By turning and following him, we can navigate the sea of information that threatens to overwhelm us. His command of love should be our rule of life and how we respond to the world around us. If we love our God, neighbour and ourselves, knowing everything may not be that important.
