Ecclesiastes 7:13, "Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what He has made crooked? When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future."
I have been reading and thinking about three areas where the consensus may be wrong. Conventional wisdom tells us that global warming is a huge problem leading our planet on a path of disaster. Conventional wisdom persuades us that medical and college costs are going to spiral out of control for the foreseeable future.
I have no idea if any of this is true. Experience and observation have taught me that the gloomy scenarios often don't materialize. God is firmly in control of every detail in this world. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:19-20, "For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"
We can look at history and see examples of consensus fears never realized. Nuclear war with the Soviet Union; food and gas shortages due to overpopulation; Y2K; Germany attacking the United States in World War II; diseases that were going to kill half the world's population. The list could go on forever.
This brings me to three fears that are prevalent today that are likely to be irrational. First global warming. I am a terrible scientist. My dad earned a PHD in nuclear physics. But I did not inherit his love for science. I do follow stories on global warming with a passing interest- mostly because I live in Dallas, Texas and hope that all the projections of global warming are terribly wrong. Dallas summers are plenty hot already.
Al Gore and Tom Brokaw tell us that the evidence for global warming is overwhelming. Are they right? There are some other voices.
There were articles in 2003 scientific journals saying that the ozone layer was starting to repair itself. Khabibullo Abdusamatov and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences believe that global temperatures have reached peaks and that the earth will begin cooling over the next 50 years with or without the Kyoto protocol.
Why do most scientists disagree with this theory? The answer might be found in a comment by climate expert Richard Lindzen of M.I.T. who says that the vast amount of government research money available for studies on "global warming" discourages skeptics from being vocal about their skepticism.
Something I am more familiar with are the financial implications of rising college and medical costs. These two areas are spiraling out of control and are putting major financial pressure on American families. College and health care costs are going to continue to go up, up, up. Right?
What if that is wrong? I have thought that two areas that can benefit most from technological innovation are education and health care. Technology has the ability to drive down costs dramatically in those two areas if it is used efficiently.
I recently read a book called The End of Medicine where the author Andy Kessler discusses the coming technological advances in the field of medicine. Most of Kessler's speculation is centered on the idea that diagnostic testing can become advanced and affordable for every American. These tests can be hooked up to computers, toilets or swallowed as pills with probes inside. If cancer and heart disease are diagnosed early enough, they can be treated and billions of dollars in chronic care costs are saved. Of course it is never that simple. But there are some compelling reasons to believe that technology will drive health care costs down and not up over time.
The same is true with college costs. There is a terrific website: http://collegecosts.info. This website has articles of research showing how using technology can make the learning experience more effective and drive down the cost of education by more than 35%.
I don't know if any of these changes will be implemented. But I suspect market forces will work on health care and education to force them to offer better value for money. The point of all of this is beware of the consensus. It is often wrong. Harry Truman once said- inspired by Ecclesiastes 1:9, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know."
Believing that problems are never as bad as they seem,
Ashley Hodge
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