Deciding Which Is Which

EVEN WITH ALL OUR modern science, technology, and education,superstition and fantasy remain popular throughout most cultures. Defining superstition and fantasy as anything we believe but can't prove leaves room for a great deal of both. Think how much literature, talk, attention is devoted to UFO's, and yet, after all the stories, all the photographs, all the eyewitness accounts, we still don't know a damned thing about UFO's, at least, officially. That is, we do not know anything that is widely agreed upon, widely accepted as definite fact, by everybody. And since we don't have that, what do we have really? In other words, what is knowledge, among a large group of people, other than facts which are agreed upon by everyone? This is what science consists of, what biology, chemistry, physics classes are all about; all the material presented by the teacher, professor, textbook, is agreed on by everyone; and if anyone doesn't agree with part of it, he or she is free to speak his or her piece, and to try to prove his or her point. By when it comes to UFO's, everyone has a different set of facts, a different opinion, and, well, really, one is about as good as another. What is amazing is that many if not most of us seem far more interested in our personal opinions about the world than in universally agreed upon facts about it. I dare say UFOs are more popular around the world than physics or chemistry. Perhaps this is because people innately prefer lingering in realms of thought which allow for their own individual interpretation of reality. This is all well and good, as long as we can scrape up enough interest in what appears to be reality to, shall we say, deal with it. For instance, can't we at least all agree that if you pump millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every day, its going to impact the climate, sometime, somehow? Surely. And can we all agree that current economic and political systems are inadequate, and need evolving? And so forth. The fact that we all agree on some things, and all have different beliefs about other things might not matter as much as deciding which is which.