Optimists prevail

Pessimism about the human condition sells, providing chilling fodder for literature, movies and the evening news. For example, scientific studies that predict ecological or natural disasters have almost a free ride to the front page of any major newspaper. Why are we so predisposed to bad news? Maybe it’s because, subconsciously, we tend to believe the world will end in some sort of horrific cataclysm, and therefore we like to be kept on edge.

In the 1960s, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring warned that birds might stop singing and plants might stop growing because of massive ecological failure. Others predicted that the world would end in a fiery nuclear holocaust brought about by political madness. In the 1970s, we were about to run out of basic resources just as the earth was poised to go into a deep freeze because the sun was being blocked by a cloud of pollution. In the 1980s, social activists predicted a wholesale return of poverty brought about by yuppie greed and unchecked materialism. And in the 1990s, we were warned that an overheated world would trigger unprecedented weather weirdness, and that an over-wired world would lead to Y2K disasters from one end of the globe to the other.

What drives these doomsday scenarios is a deep-seated fear of our own mortality. We seem to feel that if we are to perish unwillingly, the rest of the planet will have to go down with us. Human beings are pompous creatures, filled with self-importance, and that isn’t ever going to change.

What many doomsday preachers forget is that we are living longer and more productive lives that our ancestors who welcomed in the previous millennium. Living to forty was a miracle in those days, and only divine intervention could fend off the daily onslaught of disease, hardship and war. Surviving from one day to the next was a full-time, never-ending job. There was little time for anything else, except for the privileged few living at the expense of the downtrodden masses.

The pessimists of those times no doubt were governed by the same gloomy fatalism that prevails today. This is the grim way things are, and they will only get worse, so don’t bother dreaming of something better.

What changed the course of human history in the past millennium was science. Geniuses such as Newton, Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, Edison and Einstein unlocked the secrets of science for the benefit of mankind, using reason to solve problems at times when superstition and ignorance prevailed. Where others saw doom and gloom, they saw hope and the power of the human mind.

Underappreciated today (and, in some cases, even reviled), these visionaries brought the world out of the dark ages and into the light of modern times. Sadly, it has become fashionable to mock them and belittle the benefits gained from scientific progress. More often than not, scientists are portrayed as villains in modern movies, rarely as the heroes.

It’s like that with mining too. Here is a scientific endeavour that has helped free man from his cave-like existence, and from his constant battle with nature. And yet its value is increasingly questioned in some quarters, while the rest of us tend to take the industry for granted, barely giving it a second thought as we go about our busy lives.

As this century draws to a close, we tip our hat to the men and women of science who brought about the Western World’s high standard of living. By that, we don’t just mean a material standard. They have enabled us to live longer, healthier lives. They have freed us from constant toil so that we might have higher aspirations than mere self-preservation. The least we can do in return is be appreciative, and the most we can do is follow their example. There will be serious problems to solve in the new millennium, but surely, with science and a spirit of renewed optimism, we can overcome.