Page 9 - Are You Future Ready?

our lives need to be open to the applications that are
available. This does not mean unthinkingly adopting every

new technology, there are some technologies (including
some developed in Hong Kong) which are being put to
uses which are ethically dubious. This does mean that

we have the ability to assess for ourselves the way to
use technology, a consequence of this is that society
needs a degree of scientific literacy. To me one of the
mysteries of the modern world is that while it is regarded
as culturally unacceptable for an educated person to not

know something about: da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Beethoven’s 007
Fifth, Wordsworth’s odes, or Shakespeare’s sonnets; it is
acceptable to claim ignorance of: Newton’s third law of

motion, Boyle’s law, or Darwin’s theory of evolution by
natural selection. This is the so-called ‘two cultures debate’
which has been going on for at least two centuries and
this is not the place to reprise the discussion. Let me
offer the opinion that to fail to have even the most basic

understanding of science and technology is the modern
equivalent of being illiterate. It is common in universities
that basic language courses are compulsory – this is very

desirable and to be encouraged. But I would say that basic
numerical skills, and probably coding, should be regarded