## 19 We are so Ignorant

I am an ignorant, so ignorant of my world. We are all so ignorant, even those who are considered to be knowledgeable, like scientists, scholars, doctors... And we should remember this very often. For example, we know a very small part of our planet, because the oceans are 71% of the surface and only 5% has been explored....That makes only 32% of the planet Earth that man has explored. And I don't know why space seems easier to explore than our own planet... when you consider that space is infinite and we know so little about it. We have only explored a small part of the Moon and small parts of other planets in our galaxy, in the solar system. Our genome is known but not understood because it's billions of combinations. We have the library, but that doesn't mean that man has read all the books in the library. I see how ignorant we are when I go to the doctor or the vet. My mother, my wife, I... we have some symptoms that cannot be explained or interpreted. Despite numerous tests with the latest technology, th
e doctors are unable to treat it. There's a word for this: idiopathic. A lot of doctors don't want to use that word because it's an admission of ignorance. The last time I heard it used was at the Pasteur Institute. He wished us "good luck" but was unable to treat the symptoms, understand the cause or refer us to another specialist. It's even worse with vets, because they are doctors for so many different animals. Even a cat specialist can't understand what's going on. Drugs are so few and far between, often derivatives of human products that have been accidentally experimented with. Although medicine is a fantastic science with many advances, it's also very recent in human history. 

Of course we have more knowledge than our ancestors. And we can hope that our children and their children will have more knowledge than us....if nothing destroys our knowledge. Because for our ancient civilisations we have lost some information, some knowledge or some know-how. The Egyptian pyramids or the statues of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) are good examples. Our modern civilisation, based on fossil fuels, electricity and digital data, seems indestructible, but could be so fragile if a war destroys all the energy sources and knowledge stored in data centres. Some libraries of books have recently been destroyed by war or accidental fire. And all knowledge is often attacked by extremists, sometimes religious, because knowledge is a weapon. It's a key to understand situations, to find solutions, to fight obscurantism. Think for example of ....Albinos. They are often persecuted because their loss of pigmentation is not understood. They are accused of being evil, monsters, not only by one religion. Albinism was 
discovered and documented in the 18th century, but it wasn't until the 20th century that genetics and epidemiology began to explain it. As with many rare diseases, there is much to learn about this mysterious condition. People don't die from it... or indirectly, so it's not something that motivates many researchers. People are motivated by danger...

Being aware of being ignorant is not a reason to be pessimistic, to be against science, to be a conspiracy theorist, ... I think it's useful to be aware of our weaknesses. We are not so different from animals because we are human animals. If nature was a sum of knowledge, compared to our sum of human knowledge, we are just little babies at our birth, just beginning to know. We are so far from the idea of a God. Ignorance can drive our curiosity. I think I know more than my parents in many subjects, but I'm aware that I'm ignorant in some subjects that my grandfather, my father, my grandmother or my mother knew. It's not a question of intelligence, it's more a question of culture and the desire to know, to discover our little world on the scale of galaxies, and I'm aware that my insignificant life and the knowledge I've accumulated won't change the world. But I won't look down on someone for being ignorant about a subject I know a lot about. I could be that person for someone else. Knowledge is not just scien
ce. Knowing how to build, tinker, repair and cultivate is at least as important and too often ignored in our modern civilisation. I'm not very good with my hands, that's life. But I'm always happy to learn, and I'm sorry I didn't do it earlier.

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