One of the most important ideas inherited from the ancient Greeks is the ethical theory that virtue equals knowledge; that packaged in an individual human being, right conduct, commendable character, and positive values are intimately related to an individual having knowledge about what is objectively true. Although questioned by Augustine and attacked by Nietzsche, to a large extent this notion is still a major part of the liberal arts credo that is a foundation for Western educational philosophy. Most of my colleagues still believe that when they teach they are part of a mission to make the world a better place. Whether they teach history, biology, physics, or philosophy they are contributing to the big picture and the knowledge of that big picture will help students lead better personal lives. They believe passionately that education is not just for a career and a job; it is for life.

One would think that the pace of technological innovation would make the educational treatment of the whole person even more important. Yet today we find the strange schizophrenic stance of many college campuses where the liberal arts is simultaneously under attack in terms of institutional support yet figures prominently in the rhetoric of the mission statements. Repeatedly I hear from administrators and technology faculty, "Sure communication skills, values, and the big picture are important, but we really don't have the time to integrate the building of the so-called whole person into our curriculum."

This online edition of Science and the Human Prospect was written with the same intent as the first edition: The big picture matters greatly. If I were some kind of god of curriculum, no student would receive a bachelors degree in any field until they could show basic competency in where they live in the universe, how old the earth is, how life evolved on this planet, the intellectual history of science and technology, and some basic understanding of the mysterious physics that produces the technology we take so for granted. The fact that a student can weave his or her way through a college curriculum today and graduate without any knowledge of Darwin's theory of natural selection is as amazing as it is frightening.  As David Baltimore, a virologist who received a Nobel Prize in medicine, noted in a 2004 article for the Los Angeles Times, "We have more people who believe in the devil than who believe in evolution."  Given the biological choices we now have for our children, our food, our health, and even how we make war, I know of no other way to demonstrate writ large that the big picture matters than to point out the obvious danger of making these choices without an understanding of evolution.

The first edition of this book was praised for its readability, scope, and coverage of perennial issues. But any book that deals with science must undergo repeated updating. Hence most of the changes in the online text involve updating the scientific examples. Based on requests, I have also beefed up the philosophy of science a little in Chapter 2 and deepened the historical scholarship in Chapter 5. I have also added a section on String Theory to Chapter 8. In addition to these changes, the greatest value of an online edition is the links for students. Please also keep in mind that if you are using the book for a class, that unlike the paper textbook edition, I can change any chapter, paragraph, sentence, or illustration in seconds. A great advance over the old way of publishing where it took almost two years from the time a book left an author's hands to the time it finally showed up in print.