How science literacy can save us from the internet

I think no one would give up the internet
today in spite of the problems that it has presented us.
It started out oh, this is kind of fun.
We can watch cat videos all day or that’s
most of the information that came across was
instructive or humorous or enlightening.
It didn’t start turning mean until a few years in, 
maybe five or ten years ago.
Certainly definitely beginning at least five
years ago where people see it as a way to tribalize（部落化） us.
You don’t agree with my opinion, you’re wrong 
and I’m going to fight you for it.
I didn’t grow up in that environment.
I don’t think anyone else did either.
It was you have a different opinion?
Cool.
Tell me about it.
Let’s go have a beer, we’ll talk about it.
Not I will argue with you until you are dead
unless you agree with my opinion.
I said something’s not right there.
And everybody’s got an opinion and so there it goes.
The internet is this clearinghouse（交换所） of opinions
but nothing gets cleared.
Opinions ossify（变硬、骨化） making it a rather rigid（死板的） place to navigate.
So we have access to more information than ever before.
That’s a good thing.
It gives good information some hope.
But are we trained?
Do we have the tandem（一前一后、直排的） training to know whether
the information you just were exposed to is
legitimate（合理的）, is it real, is it false, is it true?
You can’t just hand people new kinds of
information without expecting them to be confused by it 

without some training that would have occurred before it.
Maybe all school curricula（课程） should be how to
determine reliable sources and now not.
How to know when it’s not reliable.
Is that in the curriculum?
Not last I looked.
Maybe in journalism school but not in K through 12.
Not in college I haven’t seen much of it.
So yes, we need practice.
Better yet we need science literacy（科学素养）.
Science literacy empowers you to know when
someone else is full of shit.
And it’s simple.
What is science literacy?
It’s understanding how things work.
How physiology works.
How chemistry works.
How physics works.
Engineering.
All of this.
You don’t have to be an engineer or be a scientist.
Just understand how certain basic systems
work so that when someone is ready to sell
you homeopathic(顺势疗法的--一种伪科学疗法) medicine where they’ve diluted（稀释）
the active ingredients（成分） from the water so that
there’s no molecules left in the water and
they sell that to you and they’re telling you that 

the water remembers the medicine that used to be in it.
And you’re going to hand money to someone for that.
I’m not going to complain to you.
I’m going to say let’s go together and
look at how you were trained.
Let’s look at the syllabus（教学大纲） that you were
handed when you were in school.
Here’s where you’re missing a few things.
Here's where you’re missing how to ask questions.
Science is not a satchel（旧时的书包） of knowledge.
It’s a way of querying（询问） nature and a way
of querying other people who are making claims about nature.
That’s where the empowerment comes from.
It’s an inoculation（医学上的接种） against charlatans（骗子）.
That’s how you’re going to know the difference going forward.