Today's era is one of alarming dichotomy, marked on the one hand by exponential growth of scientific knowledge, and on the other by grinding scientific illiteracy among the general public.  There has arisen a tendency for people to view science as a religion of sorts, or as an arcane art practiced in mysterious laboratories by amoral eccentrics with thick glasses and bad hair.  Indeed, there is an erroneous perception that science has little or nothing to do with the daily lives of ordinary people, and therefore that it can safely be ignored, or even overridden by public opinion, government decree, or religious prophecy.
     But in fact, science has everything to do with us and our daily lives, from our first breath to our last, from making intelligent choices about energy to making sure we have enough to eat.  How well we understand and apply science is a determining factor in whether we will live in a world of peace and plenty, or in one of pain and scarcity.  Indeed, there is a real danger in allowing public policy to be guided by people who are scientifically illiterate — such as the congressman whose argument on the "cloning" issue was based, not on solid science as we might justifiably expect of a public servant, but on a popular 19th-century work of horror fiction.

It is not the objective of these pages to examine science's intricate details (which are revealed on many other web sites by people far more knowledgeable and capable than I).  Rather, it is to illustrate the relevance of science to our personal, political, and economic lives, and thereby perhaps afford some tangible incentive for the average person to become better acquainted with it.

=SAJ=