8 sep 2012

today's entry from the collected words of richard feynman demonstrates why i so love to read him: he makes me think. here he is considering the question of the value science to society.

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I would now like to turn to a third value that science has. It is a little more indirect, but not much. The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is gong to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty--some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.

Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure--that it is possible to live and not know. But I don't know whether everyone realizes that this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle. Permit us to question--to doubt, that's all--not to be sure. And I think it is important that we do not forget the importance of this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. Here lies a responsibility to society.

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living in the united states today, we can't really know what it means to not be allowed to question. it's been a long time since folks in western society were burned at the stake for the crime of doubt (a.k.a. heresy) but it's not like the entire world today is free to doubt. people living in north korea, china, parts of the middle east, aren't free to not know -- they are told what they know and that's that. you might not be comfortable living with uncertainty, but at least you have a choice. ignorance and doubt are like sun and rain to knowledge -- without them, knowledge cannot grown.