Seek the uncomfortable truth

One of the biggest challenges we face as individuals and as a society is breaking through established beliefs, prejudices, assumptions and perceptions.  Too much time is wasted by people, groups and governments categorically refusing to see the truth in the data.  As Robert Laughlin said on pg. 116 of A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down":

'The more important matter is that ideologies preclude discovery.  All of us see the world as we wish it were rather than as it actually is, for it is in our nature, but we need to keep in mind that this is a design flaw of the human mind and resist it if we can.  Seeing through ideologies and debunking them is what real science is all about.  Mental life in general, actually.'

For examples, think of the Catholic Church's refusal to accept a helio-centric view of the solar system; or of the derision poured upon the founders of plate tectonics; or today the scorn and condemnation of stem cell research and the theory of evolution.    This tendency is still very much alive and with us, at every step of the journey.  Be aware.