Misinformation, Equity, and Science

Around 120 centuries ago a technological innovation, agriculture, triggered the emergence of civilization, which led to science, and thence to such progress in understanding and controlling nature that by the 20th century our species attained the technical ability to sustain a world population of billions. The Enlightenment-inspired Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UHDR), promulgated in 1948 after a decade of technical sophistication accompanied by inequity and cruelty on an unprecedented scale, exemplifies the seemingly still attainable goal of an equitable, peaceful civilization that manages its environment and itself well enough to last millions of centuries.