The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.
Examples are countless. Lets explore some.
African agriculture
Most of African population is farmers and yet one of the biggest problems in Africa is hunger. How is that? This happens because they are using the same primitive tools, methodologies and species, that were used 1000 years ago. Modern methods of farming will produce 5 times more crop on the same area (compared to American farmers).
Proper use of fertilizers, crop rotation, timing and planting techniques can increase crop significantly.
See also
- Andrew Youn: 3 reasons why we can win the fight against poverty
- Bill Gates: Why I Would Raise Chickens
- Why Bolivia turned away Bill Gates’ chicken donation
Laboratory equipment
Capacity of computers (smartphone and other devices) increased much lately. Quality and quantity of sensors on smartphone increased too. It is allow to do spectrometry with piece of DVD and smartphone.
Still most of laboratory equipment costs a lot. Example PCR machine can cost up to $10,000, while you can construct your own for $649.
You can buy computer for $9. You can construct RepRap printer for $500 (need reference on this).
Production capacities, knowledge, technological level allow to construct cheap accessible laboratory equipment.
Education
Science reached unbelievable heights nowadays. Even so people still believes in pseudo-science. Some examples:
- Astrology Debunked - Richard Dawkins in Enemies of Reason
- Homeopathy - Con or Cure - Richard Dawkins in Enemies of Reason
It is failure of educational systems, which allows such things to be tolerated or ignored. They do not teach people to think skeptically.
See also:
- A rough guide to spotting bad science
- Logical fallacyis
- Skeptic’s Dictionary
- Less Wrong is an online community for people who want to apply the discovery of biases like the conjunction fallacy, the affect heuristic, and scope insensitivity in order to improve their own thinking.
This is just a tip of iceberg. They even fail in teaching real science. See this 1 minute video to get the idea.
See also this video from RSA on why educational paradigms need to be changed.
On the other side there are tons of online courses from top universities. You can get best education in front of you screen at home.