I have always been interested in Astronomy, and currently am somewhat involved from an amateur perspective. Dave's Bad Beat story, new poker hands, etc. In a way, if you know math, you can figure out anything. There are so many areas in Mathematics that are fun to explore from an amateur perspective - I'd love to get Mathematica someday, learn it well, and start to play. Math is the language of Physics, and Physics is how the world works.
Science is the process of figuring out the way the world works.
None of it did squat. We learned how to think scientifically in the 1600s - and in the last 150 years, we have doubled life expectancy in the Western World, dropped infant mortality by a factor of over 10, and sent people to the Moon. Nothing else in history even comes close. Balancing the national budget . Comsumption Tax - the way we should pay our taxes.