Knowledge Hungry and Articulate

In The New Organon by Francis Bacon, he describes 3 types of ambition.  First is personal ambition, which is common and greedy. Then there is the ambition to extend the power of one's country and has dignity.  Lastly, there is ambition of man to extend the power of the human race over the universe, the most majestic. He goes on to say, "For the benefits of discoveries may extend to the whole human race...the benefits of discovery [benefits] for virtually all time...discoveries make men happy, and bring benefit without hurt or sorrow to anyone." (99)

Bacon asserts the work of a scientist is divinely honorable because if one has a goal to extend ambition to encompass the universe to help humanity, that is the best thing one can do.  We live in a knowledge hungry world. The Merriam-Webster dictionary literally defines science as "the state of knowing; knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding."  We always want to know more.  We are constantly making improvements and advancements in our lives.  It is up to the scientist to figure out how to discover, improve, or advance something. However, what good is new knowledge with no way to share it? What good does a new discovery do if only a select pool of individuals understand what has been accomplished?  Writers form letters and words to form ideas and thoughts and express knowledge to the public. The more people a writer can connect to, educate, inspire, and even stir conflict with, the better it is.  The work of a science writer, then, is to express scientific knowledge to as many people as possible. Science writers have the capability to make science honorable by bridging that connection between the knowledge and the public sphere and reaching out to as many people as possible. If being a scientist and attaining the science is honorable, then the challenge of giving science away, to me, is profoundly honorable.  And it's also a daunting task - science writers have to be able to understand the science and scientists and also be able to understand the audience and their critics when they give science away.  Science writers are knowledge hungry and articulate enough to teach others who are not specialized in that field.  Let's take Dr. Jonas Salk as an example. Dr. Salk devoted his time to developed the polio vaccine.  He took his knowledge, advanced it, and made a discovery, resulting in more advancement of knowledge and good for humanity.  As a scientist, that is absolutely incredible to me.  As a layperson, I don't understand what polio is and I don't understand what a vaccine does so it's not a big deal at all. The fact is, science writers can create this written art to move people and cause a concept that is confusing, not well understood, scary, and perhaps boring become clear, well understood, valient, and just amazing.  Newspapers gave away the science by publishing the findings of Dr. Salk's discovery and now Polio, a viral disease that can lead to paralysis, has been eradicated in all but 3 countries.  Now that's what I call giving away science and benefiting the common good. Take your talents, run with them, and use them honorably!