In what way will science heal anxiety, famine, diseases, worry, depression, and poverty, and if more science has no ability to alleviate any problems, what is its true worth?

Science has already figured out how to deal with most of those issues. The problem is usually in application. Or cost.

Science is THE most important thing in human history. The Internet will now/has already accelerate our scientific research and development in an exponential way. Science’s worth is invaluable. It is our only realistic hope for our species survival.

There is no choice between science having “all the worth” and “no worth”. Science is an approach to how to solve certain types of problems and to discover more about the world. Science hasn’t solved all the problems and discovered all the things, and this is exactly what one might expect, if one is reasonable and does not expect miracles. It’s working just fine.

Look around you; you might notice one or two or a dozen or two dozen things that could not exist even a decade ago, let alone a century. This is a part of its worth.

Try living on this planet with 7.6 billion people with 1850’s technology. Think about it. Yeah. There’s your answer as to how important science is.

I don’t see your god doing any heavy lifting here, especially in the last 166 years. But I can see how science has improved the lives of everyone, even the poorest among us.

In what way? The scientific method.

The problem isn’t science can’t. The problem is religion makes people think it shouldn’t.

Application of the achievements of science is in the purview of politics and society.
Science itself has already provided humanity ample ability to solve many of those problems.
It is because of science that many formerly lethal diseases can now be defeated. Some diseases have even been completely eradicated.
Science has provided the ability to produce more than enough food to feed the entire planet. It is just society and its persisting disease of nationalism that prevents the will to do so.

And let it not be forgotten that your religion was among those that murdered scientists and “witches” because their discoveries and knowledge went against religious doctrine.
It is your religion that has no worth.

“In what way?” misses the point. It isn’t the unanswerable “how” in this question that makes it strange, but the “if”. The question is phrased as though someone can be found to argue the ridiculous proposition that “more science has no ability to alleviate any problems”. Does anyone here care to stand behind that assertion?

What a daffy question.

Or is it? Let’s see what the Bible has to say about electricity and refrigeration; those answers should satisfy us on this topic. Oh, wait…
——
Some aspects of our humanity are, by definition, part of what we call “the human condition”. If there are any among us who think that science can cure us of “being human”, then they’re even crazier than this question.

Aside from that, of the items listed in the OP, famine is purely political. When famine occurs across a political jurisdiction – which is how it does occur, if anyone has been paying attention – it always has a political cause. “Crop failure” is something that science has very effectively fought for centuries, most recently with Norman Borlaug, a scientist who should be a hero to all of mankind. Famine ≠ Crop failure (although crop failure is admittedly a precursor to famine).

As one parented by science lovers who encouraged me to pursue it starting with astronomy when I was 10, I have nothing to add to the really excellent comments above—except this about Trump’s science-denying running mate, which by coincidence (itself apparently a science) I posted on my FB page just an hour ago.

Let’s replace “will” with “has” and you can start here

and here

Once you appreciate what has accomplished, you can imagine what it will.

By the way, there is a nice Anime currently airing, about a high shool girl that time travels to the past and meets several prolific scientists. and learns things about the fundamental nature and value of science. (something you are in desperate need of)
One of the best parts is Franklin squaring off against a priest who refuses to install a lightning rod on the church because it is “blasphemous”.

In the same ways it has been doing since it’s inception: eradicating small pox. minimizing the occurrence of other diseases such as measles, mumps, chicken pox, which used to devastate the population, controlling influenza. Then there’s increasing crop yields and milk production. Why do you post inflammatory questions that you know the answers to?

Science is not the end-all to the world’s problems. Logic might be, and I see little of that.

“Not much more than can be said, let’s hear what you got?”

I think this is up there with the dumbest fucking things I have ever read on this site. And I have read a lot of your stuff.

Nowhere in the question, details, or topic tags is religion or God mentioned.

Yeah, I know how @Hypocrisy_Central usually rolls, but he usually also mentions religion, God or faith.

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of the “leap of faith” so many on this thread are taking?

@Hypocrisy_Central, please clear up your meaning. As written, it’s hard not to go there.

Thank you @canidmajor. I can’t quite figure out what he’s trying to get at. And what does it have to do with unmarried sex???

As long as capitalism has a hold over everything science will never get the green light to reduce pain and suffering.

Like when big pharma sued the government of south africa for wanting to produce their own cheap generic HIV meds.

Like when uninformed public outcry is hindering the development of GMO foods, that could feed the world?

The true worth of science isn’t what it can do but what it is: a way of understanding the world and of satisfying human curiosity. As a result science has provided the means to treat anxiety, relieve famine and lift huge numbers of people out of poverty.

I think it’s much worse when people think they get science but don’t and believe the political/corrupted spin on things.

Like anti-vaxxers.

Yes like anti-vaxers, may be not anti-GMO though. There is some unresolved grey area there.

@Espiritus_Corvus Try living on this planet with 7.6 billion people with 1850’s technology.
Technology may have a foot in science as most all things do, but building a better widget doesn’t make it science.

I don’t see your god doing any heavy lifting here, especially in the last 166 years.
This is not a “God question”, so why inject it into it? Plus, I have not been around for 166 years for any god I created to be here, and if I managed it, it would be as feckless, feeble, and useless as all the other gods that were created.

But I can see how science has improved the lives of everyone, even the poorest among us.
I guess only those who can afford it, the time it took me to type this sentence a child somewhere in the 3rd world just died of hunger.

@Lightlyseared The problem isn’t science can’t.
If more science is supposed to make the lives of everyone better, then I guess the reason some have not benefited from it has to fall on the greed or malice of some to deny others from obtaining it.

@stanleybmanly The question is phrased as though someone can be found to argue the ridiculous proposition that “more science has no ability to alleviate any problems”.
In societies or as a global community make the case then, if science has solved so many problems why is not everyone fed, housed, in great health? When it comes to science it seems those who can afford it, or afford the byproducts of it do better, those who are poor and cannot access or utilize the byproducts of science often waste away or don’t fare as well.

@CWOTUS Or is it? Let’s see what the Bible has to say about electricity and refrigeration; those answers should satisfy us on this topic. Oh, wait…
This is not a Bible question, maybe you have no answer so you try to duck, dodge, and hide behind trying to slight the Bible?

When famine occurs across a political jurisdiction – which is how it does occur, if anyone has been paying attention – it always has a political cause.
Well, I guess Global Warming climate change can be ruled out of drought hits and area, or too much rain or pest that destroy the harvest in a chronic fashion.

@marinelife Why do you post inflammatory questions that you know the answers to?
Because I do know the answer, but trying to see if I am wrong, but so far no one has made the case. Science have prolong the lives of some and made some more comfortable and productive, but they are usually the global ”haves” and the global ”have nots” die from treatments science supposedly can cure or stop. Overall, more science has not made the world as a whole a better place, unless you only count the places where they can afford it.

@canidmajor Nowhere in the question, details, or topic tags is religion or God mentioned.
Curious, isn’t it? I get accused of always bringing God into the equation, and when I don’t others try to inject Him in it anyhow. Do they really in their hearts want to speak of God but are just too afraid to be real and come out and say it? Is it a duck, dodge, and hide tactic to divert from the fact they can’t answer the question…..we may never know.

[…. please clear up your meaning. As written, it’s hard not to go there.
Oy bey, I thought it was quite clear, when I add direction then I get accused of having an agenda or leading the question. The meaning of it is in books, papers, etc. a utopian world where all are well, healthy, and fed, housed, etc. is to be ushered on the back of science. We have had science for decades, and in some areas have done amazing things, but only for those in richer nations or those who can afford it, overall as it stands, science has yet to produce anything close to a utopian society, ether it can’t and is a pipedream being chased or that it can and I am listening to some to see just how that will occur.

@Hypocrisy_Central, I’m not sure where you get the idea that science would result in a utopian world. Science, in and of itself, is the methodology employed to discover stuff, and in some ways, enable the possibilities of improvement to the human condition.

The faults you describe lie not with science, but with the humans who control the discoveries that the scientists have made. Science has indeed made life better for all of us. Even in the most poverty stricken parts of the world, there are certain diseases that no longer decimate populations (smallpox comes to mind) because dedicated scientists have worked hard to eradicate them.

Maybe in the future the pursuit of certain kinds of scientific knowledge will, indeed, contribute to a utopian society, but it will be the fallible humans that implement it.

I tried to illustrate with a satirical response that science has already resolved many of those questions – as others did more directly. And I know that you’re intelligent enough to have understood the satire, but for some reason you’re pretending not to.

I do see that I was remiss in not saying that “crop failure is a real thing, and does occur”. However, I did say, and clearly, that Crop Failure ≠ Famine.

How can you, with a straight face, sit at a computer connected to the internet using electricity to talk with people at almost no cost, nearly instantaneously if you wish, and say that science is useless? You’re not also using wireless technology, are you?

@Hypocrisy_Central Seriously? Just no.

@Hypocrisy_Central “Because I do know the answer, but trying to see if I am wrong, but so far no one has made the case.”

And there is your problem and why your questions cannot, and should not, be taken seriously. As long as you’re certain that you do know the answer then no one will ever make the case. Your mind is set and your questions are simply self-gratification for you and a pointless waste of time for everyone else.

@CWOTUS How can you, with a straight face, sit at a computer connected to the internet using electricity to talk with people at almost no cost, nearly instantaneously if you wish, and say that science is useless?
I can’t recall I ever said science was useless. And I was not speaking Chinese, so I do not know how you came up with that. Perhaps some here have selective hearing.

@Darth_Algar And there is your problem and why your questions cannot, and should not, be taken seriously.
If that is how you see them, I say do not waste any time on them, there are questions of people wanting to know why he/she doesn’t love them that could use your attention.

As long as you’re certain that you do know the answer then no one will ever make the case. Your mind is set and your questions are simply self-gratification for you and a pointless waste of time for everyone else.
Unlike many questions in the Fluther religion preached to the Fluther choir this question (as others) is derived by the preponderance of certain evidence. All the way back from the 60s in books, writings, movies, and the likes, the picture is painted that more science, more technology will congeal the planet into one big happy family where racial and gender issues will go away and be look on as obsolete as voodoo. Over the past 100 years we have gotten very technical and science has improved to the point you can literally replace someone’s face. The only way those who can’t afford it get access is if those who have extend it to them. My using the Internet is not benefiting any starving person in Africa directly, maybe if I were doing a food drive via Internet, indirectly but they will be benefiting because I some stranger, is using it on their behalf, to extend something to them, otherwise it might as well be on the Moon, because it would not work for them because they on their own have so little access to it, if any, it is useless.

@Hypocrisy_Central, there are as many books, writing, theories that state that scientific progress will result in dystopian societies; 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley being two of the most famous.
The good vs bad of scientific progress outcomes is pretty evenly covered. From Star Trek to The Hunger Games, and everywhere in between, the value/curse of science has been pretty well covered.

@Hypocrisy Central, I think your question was phrased different than the points you bring up.

Perhaps a better question would have been ‘Why can’t scientific advances fix all the world’s problems? ’ As that seems to be what you’re getting at.

Science and research cost money and resources. The ‘problem’ is that we currently exchange money for goods and services. If there were a world where currency wasn’t a concept that was employed, every person gets what’s needed, every person contributes, THEN everyone would reap the benefits of science. Unfortunately, that is a fantasy.

One of the main motivations for scientific research is to make money. The people working on desalination of salt water might be doing it for the greater good, but the wealthy people giving them the money to research and develop the technology are hoping for a big pay day. Same with vaccines. Big pharmaceutical companies aren’t trying to save the world. They are hoping to profit from something that people need to survive. These companies won’t just give the technology away. That’s not their goal. Only the air we breathe is currently free.

Greed is what stands in the way of a world where we all bask in science’s glow. Politics doesn’t help either.

The way the world works, there will always be those who suffer for not being born in the right place.

Don’t you love something that is completely objective?You don’t have to question or wonder?It’s a solid bet,the scientific method.It’s reality without emotion.What a relief.Very logical,and mysterious.