Science communicators need to stop telling us the universe is a meaningless void

[C C]

Via the "do like anthropology" bit, actually seems to be another disguised appeal to decolonization of knowledge, or the incremental undermining of WEIRD standards (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic). --> Spot the WEIRDo
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https://theconversation.com/science-comm...oid-215334

EXCERPT: . . . Proponents of science often see themselves in a battle against the forces of superstition and religion, one which geneticist Francis S. Collins has written is “overshadowed by the high-decibel pronouncements of those who occupy the poles of the debate”.

But if we are trying to use science communication to make the world a better place, we shouldn’t let the drama of this battle distract us from our ultimate goal.

Instead, science communicators would do well to take a more sensitive and anthropological approach to science communication. Understanding what people value and how to reach them may actually help the advancements of science make the world a better place.

We don’t have to change what science discovers, but we perhaps do not have to tell people their life has no meaning in the opening chapter of a popular science book. As Brian Greene put it, “we have developed strategies to contend with knowledge of our impermanence”, which provide us with hope as we “gesture toward eternity”... (MORE - missing details)

[Magical Realist]

We don’t have to change what science discovers, but we perhaps do not have to tell people their life has no meaning in the opening chapter of a popular science book. As Brian Greene put it, “we have developed strategies to contend with knowledge of our impermanence”, which provide us with hope as we “gesture toward eternity”..

It's not exactly surprising that the materialism and physicalism underlying much of modern science would end up in a sort of cynical nihilism. But science itself need not succumb to such a fate. There is a spiritual core of wonderment and awe in science that is optimistic, aspiring, and value-generating and that Carl Sagan talked about. We would do well to heed his exhortations:

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark