We're Kids in Shopping Cart Cars

I keep up with my science for regular people, all right? I don't want to be a purist treading water on the humanities side of C.P. Snow's Two Cultures, though I do find the water warmer over there. I get most of my science reporting through the written word, because on TV or radio the "science guy" always talks with a wacky voice and uses the word "stuff" a lot. Often while wearing a bow tie.

One of the core scientific issues is the question of free will, which scientists agree doesn't exist. If I understand properly, we're like toddlers riding in one of those shopping cart cars, blissfully indulging the illusion that we're actually steering. The question is who's driving then? Well, mom and dad are surely steering a bit in absentia, depending on the amount of therapy we've engaged in as adults. Evangelicals and fundamentalists say it's god, but that doesn't fly as a scientific explanation. Scientists are all Darwinians, so, in that view, steering isn't the result of any personal factors or influence. Maybe we're guided by a biological GPS app that was programed by countless millennia of genetic experience. Not sure that's how I see it, but I think that's the scientific view.

But the kids in those cars don't question things. They just enjoy the hell out of the ride, and make sure they get some goodies before the check out counter.