This is so true. They even like to think they know the size of the universe itself for a fact. I'm sure a century from now the scientists of the future will be laughing at our ideas like we laugh at creationism today.
Quite likely. Almost every civilization or rather generation has deemed itself to be the pinnacle of progress and rational thought. Good thing about the current scientific method is that it's relatively honest and less dogmatic. But make no mistake, it's still dogmatic to a degree and it'll always be difficult to go against supposedly established theories.
At any given point, we have conflicting theories to many areas of science and these are often 'resolved' not through pure logic, but through the manipulations of megacorporations and the consumerism lifestyle.
At any rate, not many of us actually understand the things we're using or 'believing'. Like average high-school kids using basic differentiation techniques, we've no idea of why it actually works and cannot formally prove it. We're taking the words of our supposed experts.
How many of us can truly say we understand both the fine points of Creationism and the many proofs needed for the Theory of Evolution? Carbon dating? Geological proofs? Basic paleontology and anatomy? Animal husbandry and Mendel (IIRC)?
Even those who have learned often forget if it's not in their line of work. Or another example, why does the earth go round the sun? What proof and why? Some of us may know it off-hand.. but most will not. Even when we go to the internet, we are simply believing in the experts. Not all of us are like Da Vinci who can actually deduce such things from experience or at least the experience of direct reasoning.
How many of us understand in detail why our cars work? Why airplanes can fly? Maybe the scientists won't be laughing at our theories because they themselves are bogged down with information overload. Unless some new paradigm is achieved, we will all suffer even more information overload and narrowness of specialization. Ironically, we're reverting back to the times just before the Renaissance in Europe.
Then, the common man defers almost completely to the bishops and pope for knowledge of many things. In the future, or even now, we shall call our bishops scientists and the popes shall be the megacorporations. And what preach shall they deliver, pray tell?
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