Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Rezwan]

Here’s a quote from one of my favorite books on science that brings up the issue of uncertainty:

To assert that science is open-minded, or that it should be, not only contradicts the evidence but also clashes directly, and not too subtly, with other common beliefs about science, in particular that scientific knowledge carries a notable degree of certainty. Everything that one learns has not only a positive side – that certain things exist, that a certain phenomenon takes place – but also a negative one – that certain other things therefore cannot exist, that certain other phenomena therefore cannot occur. This, of course, is the source of resistance to novelty. Having explicitly learned certain things, scientists and science have at the same time learned implicitly that other things are not so. We could then be truly open-minded only about things that we do not yet know about at all, or things about which we know so little that we cannot even judge their plausibility. That is an empty sort of open-mindedness, good in lighthearted bull sessions perhaps, but irrelevant to organized knowledge seeking.

Further:

Much about the actual everyday practice of science can be understood on the basis that science is a conservative, even hidebound enterprise; little, if anything, can be understood about the actual practice of science by regarding it as inherently open to new things. Indeed, genuine absurdity results if the demand that science be open is taken to logical conclusions.

From “Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method” by Henry Bauer. Check it out 😛