I should teach the world the scientific method, and teach it in such a way that people reflexively applied it in their everyday lives. Think of what the world would be like if people watched political commercials, and evaluated the claims using the standards of science. Think of what the world would be like if people read the newspaper, and reflexively asked: 'What is the evidence for this? Does the evidence justify the interpretation?'

Stephen Kosslyn is author of Ghosts in the Mind's Machine: Creating and Using Images in the Brain (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)), and coauthor of Wet Mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience (buy this book from Amazon (UK) or Amazon (USA)). See his website.