We didn't build the interstate system to connect New York to Los Angeles because the West Coast was a priority. No, we webbed the highways so people can go to multiple places and invent ways of doing things not thought of by the persons building the roads.

Science is a cooperative enterprise spanning the generations. It's the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher. A community of minds, reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars.

Research in education has shown that we remember field trips long into adulthood. I remember visiting the post office in second grade and looking at the sorting machine. I have vivid memories of that, when I don't even remember the name of the teacher who took me.

Since life on Earth is, so far, the only known example of life in the universe, our dilemma may simply be that we have no other examples to compare us with. If we did, then the life/non-life transition might look downright simple to us.

The center line of science literacy - which not many people tell you, but I feel this strongly, and I will go to my grave making this point - is how you think.

People like death and mayhem.

Science, and its impact on a person's livelihood is the common denominator.