Asimov's credo

I read Issac Asimov's Foundation series years ago, but there was one idea that stuck with me. The setting was the far future. The Galactic Empire was in a period of decline, allowing it's science and technology to slowly erode and collapse. The Foundation was the one spot in the Galaxy where science and advances were continuing to move forward. In an exchange between a man from the Foundation and a "researcher" from the Empire, the researcher explained that the way to figure things out was to read multiple source materials and decide what is right from your own opinion. When asked whether it made sense to do some original research, he acted like this was a strange question.

Sometimes, I look around and I think that this is the state we are in today. Whether it is our ease at accepting nutty stories we get emailed to us, or the sheer amount of misinformation that we repeat, we are prone to this way of thinking.

In the Foundation series, the ones that stopped questioning stagnated down to helplessness and obscurity. The ones that kept up their research and questioning had comfortable lives and made interesting discoveries.

It's not just a science fiction story, it reflects real life.