In the 1930's B.F. Skinner found that a variable schedule of reinforcement could cause rats to push a lever unto death. In the 1950's an implanted electrode was even more impressively compelling. In the 1970's John B. Calhoun noted modern human behaviors among his rats of NIMH. I recently camped outside a casino in their parking lot and imagined their never-to-be-seen truth-in-advertising sign to read, "WELCOME TO OUR SKINNER BOX RATS OF NIMH!"

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/compass-pleasure_n_890342
http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/critical-mass.html

Per recent review: As seen by NASA, the world is getting greener due to expansion of silviculture and intensive agriculture. China and Indiaâ"the worldâ(TM)s most populous countriesâ"are leading the increase in greening on land. The greening is anthropogenic, due to fossil-fueled industrial agriculture. Global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s [arid land when irrigated turns green until ground water is exhausted or there is no fuel for pumping], an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. One-third of Earthâ(TM)s vegetated lands are greening, while only 5 percent are growing browner. Anthropocene enthusiasts and ecomodernists, like me, rejoice. Chinaâ(TM)s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes from its programs to conserve and expand forests [aka tree farms] to produce future wood products (and incidentally reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution, and climate change) as well as intensification of irrigated agriculture in order to feed their large populations [for a time] using multiple cropping practices that have increased food production 35 to 40 percent since 2000 by turning fossil fuel into food to grow the economy. One interpretation of the data: âoeOnce people realize there is a problem, they tend to fix it... Humans are incredibly resilient.Thatâ(TM)s what we see in the satellite data.â Humans are fixing the world! Data needs to be interpreted, however. The interpretation is provided by the journal Nature Sustainability (pay-walled article, Feb. 2019, in pay-to-play journal launched Jan. 2018), and is one interpretation (reviewed on NASA Earth Observatory). Caveat emptor. http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/index.html#eps3

Orkney is where testing is done under wet dream conditions that maximize energy production from wind, wave, and tidal flows. Population 22K, so 'energy too cheap to meter', but we've heard that before. Imagine some clever ape just came up with the idea of building dams and using water constrained outflow to generate electricity. Locals would have energy abundance until the power could be spread out. Articles would be written about how hydro dams were going to power the endless growth of industrial society. Bottomline reality check, XKCD bitches: all the hydro that exists, is being built or could be built (assuming billions of humans agree to move to higher ground) won't power life as we know it now, let alone empower continued growth. Not one hydroelectric dam has been built using hydroelectric power. Not one energy producing system on Orkney was made using alternative energy from Orkney or anywhere else. It was made, like all dams (Teslas, PV panels, industrial agricultural products aka food...) almost entirely from fossil fuels. The energy return from tidal is high, higher even than hydro, but alternative energy sources are not alternative to the larder of planetary fossil fuels we are burning through in a flash of geological time. http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/emergy-yield-ratio-matters.html

Aside from my memories of public school, mostly traumatic, I subbed K-12 for a couple of years for a view from the otherside. American public education compares well enough with other countries up to about the fourth grade, after which it is a race to the bottom. The student subculture becomes increasingly resistant to and contemptuous of learning, which is just so not cool. We were paid more to sub middle school; we called it "combat pay." So seriously consider sparing your children middle school. For some who survive with curiosity intact in spite of middle school, high school can be a learning experience, but for too many it is a wasteland. Our son went to public school K-4, skipping first grade. We often read to him and I recall when he was in kindergarten he announced he could read. I flipped a few chapters ahead in the book I was reading to him and said, "Read this." He read without the slightest hesitation or fumbling, "Compsognathus was a small dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous." So I believed him. His fourth grade teacher was good, but I had seen things to come so we secular homeschooled him and were not in league with other homeschoolers in the area who were all religiously motivated. The so called 'gifted programs', all the ones in our area, were a bad joke. I suppose I wanted him to be like me, an autodidactic, which I didn't learn to be in school. He learned to learn and before high school he tested into college level in most subjects. After monitoring classes in one of the top rated high schools in the country that offered a lot of AP classes, he was put off that it took most teachers 10 minutes to get the students to pretend to focus. At thirteen he started college. He did go to a local high school one semester with two foreign exchange students we had taken in "for anthropological research" before going back to college. With an AS in CS he decided not to go to university as he could learn more and faster on his own and thought it would slow him down. He had wanted to get his GED, but was too young at the time, so near the end of college he got it. He is now, early 20's, working IT and doing well thank you. If I recall, I learned about /. from him, so educators all.

Nurses, who, as my Mom used to say, "Aren't the smartest people," but per some polls are the most trusted.

The study was published in March and was discussed here in March, with 315 comments: http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/03/30/1857216/does-scientific-literacy-make-people-more-ethical

Religious belief and other expressions of certitude are presumably manifestations of the believing mind and the believing mind has given raise to all the cultures of belief we know of (which may equal all the cultures we know of). Some elements of culture, going back to Thales, may have found an alternative, but we have yet to create a culture of inquiry to supersede and replace that of belief. So can we? Another way to put it: Is the believing mind hardwired (in which case we're screwed?) or can some form of education liberate the vast majority to if not become superlative inquirers, to at least recognize and value those who are? (And would starting by age three-five be too late?)

You have a follower it seems. Me. I was laid down by a truck while riding a motorcycle 16 months ago, TBI (traumatic brain injury), lights out for two weeks, didn't know where I lived a month later when discharged from hospital. Same symptoms. Sort of like aging 20-30 years in a day. But wheels still turn (sort of). Recently learned Joomla! Took six months, but bit by bit, and can still do good work which is the important thing. Takes about three times longer. No one's going to pay me, so forced to suck the ad sense tit. Even Murray Gell-Mann has to work within his limitations. We all do. Mine just changed suddenly.