Is it better to learn than to remain ignorant?

[Severian]

My point however, is without the advantage of retrospect there is no way to know if ignorance would have been beneficial for any given scenario - to utilize ignorance as a safety mechanism you pretty much have to roll the dice... a policy that I honestly believe would lead to more harm than good from the strategy.

 

The end result is that to remain ignorant, you roll the dice and leave it up to chance, and knowledge at least gives you the opportunity to make intelligent thoughtful decisions. Not all intelligent thoughtful decisions will have beneficial results, but most certainly more often than a strategy of ignorance.

 

I completely agree with that. We should be pushing forward with science irrespective of what it reveals because it is one of our primary endeavours as human beings. I am a scientist after all.

 

But that was not the question in the thread. The question was to ask if all scientific advances benefit us, and I think the answer to that is no.

[padren]

I completely agree with that. We should be pushing forward with science irrespective of what it reveals because it is one of our primary endeavours as human beings. I am a scientist after all.

 

But that was not the question in the thread. The question was to ask if all scientific advances benefit us, and I think the answer to that is no.

 

 

Given the opportunity (people living in poverty without access to learning resources can be exempt from this) is there an ethical drive beyond ones own personal gain to learn about the natural world' date=' other cultures, their own historical roots etc?

 

People who manage to 'live in a bubble' may be annoying, but are doing anything wrong? [/quote']

 

The thread title being: "Is it better to learn than to remain ignorant?"

 

I think we read the question differently. I agree entirely that scientific knowledge can be damaging in some cases, and isn't always beneficial to the moment. This fact is somewhat moot though, as you can't choose which is which beforehand - but it is certainly a fact.