I mean, the problem is I'm afraid, that there's an expectation on the part of the public -- and I don't blame the public because I think science and medicine has set it up for the public to expect us to expound facts, to know things. n this witty talk, neuroscientist Stuart Firestein walks us through the reality behind knowledge which is in fact another word for ignorance. Immunology has really blossomed because of cancer research initially I think, or swept up in that funding in any case. FIRESTEINBut I call them case histories in ignorance. Knowledge is a big subject, says Stuart Firestein, but ignorance is a bigger one. FIRESTEINAnd I must say a lot of modern neuroscience comes to exactly that recognition, that there is no way introspectively to understand. One kind of ignorance is willful stupidity; worse than simple stupidity, it is a callow indifference to facts or logic. If Firestein is correct that science needs to be about asking good, ( and I think he is) and that the current schooling system inhibits this (and I think it does)then do we have a learning framework for him. And those are the things that ought to be interesting to us, not the facts. So I think that's what you have to do, you know. 1,316 talking about this. . And of course I could go on a whole rant about this, but I think hypothesis-driven research which is what the demand is of often the reviewing committees and things like that, is really, in the end -- I think we've overdone it with that. On Consciousness & the Brain with Bernard Baars are open-minded conversations on new ideas about the scientific study of consciousness and the brain. I mean that's been said of physics, it's been said of chemistry. "[8] The book was largely based on his class on ignorance, where each week he invited a professor from the hard sciences to lecture for two hours on what they do not know. And through meditation, as crazy as this sounds and as institutionalized as I might end up by the end of the day today, I have reached a conversation with a part of myself, a conscious part of myself. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. REHMAnd one final email from Matthew in Carry, N.C. who says, "When I was training as a graduate student we were often told that fishing expeditions or non-hypothesis-driven-exploratory experiments were to be avoided. REHMThank you. We work had to get facts, but we all know they're the most unreliable thing about the whole operation. The most engaging part of the process are the questions that arise. I bet the 19th-century physicist would have shared Firesteins dismay at the test-based approach so prevalent in todays schools. ANDREASGood morning, Diane. to finally to a personalized questioning phase (why do we care? Not the big questions like how did the universe begin or what is consciousness. 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Well, it was available to seniors in their last semester and obviously I did that as a sort of a selfish trick because seniors in their last semester, the grading is not so much of an issue. Firestein begins his talk by explaining that scientists do not sit around going over what they know, they talk about what they do not know, and that is how . And so I think the black hole idea is one of those things that just kind of -- it sounds engaging whereas a gravity hole, I don't know whether it would -- but you're absolutely right. And, by the way, I want to say that one of the reasons that that's so important to me is that I think this makes science more accessible to all of us because we can all understand the questions. And it is ignorancenot knowledgethat is the true engine of science. Science doesnt explain the universe. Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. Go deeper into fascinating topics with original video series from TED. In it -- and in his 2012 book on the topic -- he challenges the idea that knowledge and the accumulation of data create certainty. But an example of how that's not how science works, the theories that prove successful until something else subsumes them. Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. What Firestein says is often forgotten about is the ignorance surrounding science. REHMDirk sends this in, "Could you please address the concept of proof, which is often misused by the public and the press when discussing science and how this term is, for the most part, not appropriate for science? When expanded it provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs to match the current selection. What does real scientific work look like? The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. FIRESTEINI mean, ignorance, of course, I use that term purposely to be a little provocative. REHMSo what you're saying is you think from a biological standpoint that we've been on the wrong track. Thats why we have people working on the frontier. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Bullseye. FIRESTEINSo you're talking about what I think we have called the vaunted scientific method, which was actually first devised by Francis Bacon some years ago. You just could never get through it. All rights reserved. Curiosity-driven research, what better thing could you want? Despite them being about people doing highly esoteric scientific work, I think you will find them engaging and pleasantly accessible narratives. 208 pages. I said, no PowerPoint. CHRISTOPHEROkay. 6. Stuart Firestein teaches students and citizen scientists that ignorance is far more important to discovery than knowledge. Yes, it's exactly right, but we should be ready to change the facts. And it's just brilliant and, I mean, he shows you so many examples of acting unconsciously when you thought you'd been acting consciously. REHMOne of the fascinating things you talk about in the book is research being done regarding consciousness and whether it's a purely human trait or if it does exist in animals. Id like to tell you thats not the case. Instead, Firestein proposes that science is really about ignorance about seeking answers rather than collecting them. And I'm just trying to push the needle a little bit to the other side because when you work in science you realize it's the questions that you really care the most about. In his Ted talk the Pursuit of Ignorance, the neuroscientist Stuart Firesteinsuggests that the general perception of science as a well-ordered search for finding facts to understand the world is not necessarily accurate. Even when you're doing mathematics problems but your unconscious takes over. Access a free summary of The Pursuit of Ignorance, by Stuart Firestein and 25,000 other business, leadership and nonfiction books on getAbstract. And yet today more and more high-throughput fishing expeditions are driving our science comparing the genomes between individuals. Part of what we also have to train people to do is to learn to love the questions themselves. And as it now turns out, seems to be a huge mistake in some of our ideas about learning and memory and how it works. What's the relation between smell and memory? Copyright 2012 by Stuart Firestein. In this sense, ignorance is not stupidity. The Pursuit of Ignorance: Summary & Response. Describe the logical positivist philosophy of science. REHMSo how do you make a metaphor for string theory? I had, by teaching this course diligently, given these students the idea that science is an accumulation of facts. TED's editors chose to feature it for you. In the lab, pursuing questions in neuroscience with the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, thinking up and doing experiments to test our ideas about how brains work, was exciting and challenging and, well, exhilarating. FIRESTEINYes. African American Studies And The Politics Of Ron DeSantis, Whats Next In The Fight Over Abortion Access In The US. I'm Diane Rehm. It means a lot because of course there is this issue of the accessibility of science to the public FIRESTEINwhen we're talking some wacko language that nobody can understand anymore. He [], Moving images and hidden systems Session 2 moved into the world of the unexplored. And so, you know, and then quantum mechanics picked up where Einstein's theory couldn't go, you know, for . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art. Lytton Strachey, biographer and critic, Eminent Victorians, 1918 (via the Yale Book of Quotations). Ignorance follows knowledge, not the other way around. Stuart Firestein, Ignorance: How It Drives Science. They come and tell us about what they would like to know, what they think is critical to know, how they might get to know it, what will happen if they do find this or that thing out, what might happen if they dont. Firestein avoids big questions such as how the universe began or what is consciousness in favor of specific questions, such as how the sense of smell works. Political analyst Basil Smikle explains why education finds itself yet again at the center of national politics. Relevant Learning Objective: LO 1-2; Describe the scientific method and how it can be applied to education research topics. and then even more questions (what can we do about it?). Good morning, Christopher. Please find all options here. I don't know. in Education, Philosophy, Science, TED Talks | November 26th, 2013 1 Comment. Now, we joke about it now. He is an adviser for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundations program for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It doesn't really matter, I guess, but -- and the basis of the course, we do readings and discussions and so forth, but the real basics of the course are that on most weeks, I invite a member of our science faculty from Columbia or someone I know who is coming through town or something like that, to come in and talk to the students for two hours about what they don't know. ANDREASAll right. "Scientists do reach after fact and reason," he asserts. It's time to open the phones. At the Columbia University Department of Biological Sciences, Firestein is now studying the sense of smell. But I have to admit it was not exhilarating. MS. DIANE REHMThanks for joining us. Knowledge is not necessarily measured by what you know but by how good of questions you can ask based on your current knowledge. I put up some posters and things like that. FIRESTEINBut you can understand the questions quite well and you can talk to a physicist and ask her, what are the real questions that are interesting you now? What will happen when you do? MAGIC VIDEO HUB | Have we made any progress since 2005? The positive philosophy that Firestein provides is relevant to all life's endeavors whether politics, religion, the arts, business, or science, to be broad-minded, build on errors (don't hide them), & consider newly discovered "truths" to be provisional. The first time, I think, was in an article by a cancer biologist named Yuri Lazebnik who is at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and he wrote a wonderful paper called "Can a Biologist Fix a Radio?" It was either him or George Gamow. Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. The difference is they ought to begin with the questions that come from those conclusions, not from the conclusion. PROFESSOR Stuart Firestein worries about his students: what will graduate schools think of men and women who got top marks in Ignorance? Knowledge is a big subject. In his new book, Ignorance, neuroscientist Stuart Firestein goes where most academics dare not venture. But it is when they are most uncertain that the reaching is often most imaginative., It is very difficult to find a black cat In the ideal world, both of these approaches have value as we need both wide open and a general search for understanding and a way to apply it to make the world better. REHMAnd just before the break we were talking about the change in statements to the public on prostate cancer and how the urologists all across the country are coming out absolutely furiously because they feel that this statement that you shouldn't have a prostate test every year is the wrong one. FIRESTEINat the National Academy of Scientists right now at this conference. So, the knowledge generates ignorance." (Firestein, 2013) I really . They're all into medical school or law school or they've got jobs lined up or something. Firestein claims that exploring the unknown is the true engine of science, and says ignorance helps scientists concentrate their research. Fascinating. In a letter to her brother in 1894, upon having just received her second graduate degree, Marie Curie wrote: One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done . I wanna go back to what you said about facts earlier. So they're imminently prepared to give this talk -- to talk to the students about it. Were hoping to rely on our loyal readers rather than erratic ads. So this is a big question that we have no idea about in neuroscience. He was very clear about that. As neuroscientist Stuart Firestein jokes: It. In the following excerpt from his book, IGNORANCE: How It Drives Science, Firestein argues that human ignorance and uncertainty are valuable states of mind perhaps even necessary for the true progress of science. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Stuart Firestein's follow-up to Ignorance, Failure, is a worthy sequel. Now 65, he and Diane revisit his provocative essay. So what I'd like you to do is give us an example where research -- not necessarily in the medical field, but wherever where research led to a conclusion that was later found out to be wrong. FIRESTEINThat's right. There is an overemphasis on facts and data, even though they can be the most unreliable part of research. He said nobody actually follows the precise approach to experimentation that is taught in many high schools outside of the classroom, and that forming a hypothesis before collecting data can be dangerous. Then he said facts are constantly wrong. Science, we generally are told, is a very well-ordered mechanism for understanding the world, for gaining facts, for gaining data, biologist Stuart Firestein says in, 4. And good morning, Stuart. FIRESTEINWell, there you go. Facts are fleeting, he says; their real purpose is to lead us to ask better questions. Firestein says there is a common misconception among students, and everyone else who looks at science, that scientists know everything. The majority of the general public may feel science is best left to the experts, but Firestein is quick to point out that when he and his colleagues are relaxing with post-work beers, the conversation is fueled by the stuff that they dont know.