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Harold Kroto won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, the soccer ball shaped form of carbon better known as buckyballs. On June 28, he spoke to students [at the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting] about science as a philosophical construct:
"I'm going to talk about what science is because it's a totally misunderstood sort of subject. There are aspects of science which are important, and of course we know the body of knowledge that you learn at school, alright. The applications of that knowledge, technology, the only thing that journalists ever ask, in general, 99 percent of the time.
"Perhaps most important is that it's the way that we discover new knowledge. But for me the most important, by far, is that it's the only philosophical construct we have to determine truth with any degree of reliablity. Think about that. Because then it becomes a much bigger subject. In fact, for me, perhaps the most important subject there is. And the ethical purpose of eduction must involve teaching children how they can decide what they're being told is actually true. And that's not the case in general. The teaching of a skeptical, evidence-based assessment of all claims--all claims--without exception is fundamentally an intellectual integrity issue. Without evidence, anything goes.Think about it.
"Common sense says the sun goes around the Earth. Who agrees with me? Look at it! Starts over here, ends over there. It's uncommon sense that was needed to recognize that the Earth was turning on its axis. The uncommon sense of Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno, who burned to death. We have to learn to be very careful and to question everything. Let me just check--how many of you know the evidence for Galileo to say that the Earth was going around the sun? Put your hand up. You've accepted it. Almost nobody's put their hand up. It's incredible. Look at yourself, you've accepted this. You've accepted a lot of things without evidence. Find out what the evidence is for that, and find out what the evidence is for everything that you accept."
--Steve Mirsky
[The above is a transcript of this podcast.]
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2 Comments
Add Comment(slow clap) Bravo!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience isn't the results of investigation, it's the tenets that underlie the way investigation is undertaken.
OK, I get his point and I applaud the concept, however it seems to me that it isn't reasonable to expect everyone to find the evidence for all the things they accept.... there is just too much information and not enough time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suppose if a person didn't have to spend time raising a family and holding a job, they might have time to cover a pretty broad range of topics, but seriously, isn't there some way to reasonably short-cut the process when considering things that have already been exhaustively studied?
For example, if I know that the consensus of scientists in a long studied field is well established, can't I just make a pretty safe assumption that if I spent all the time examining the evidence I would reach a similar conclusion they would? Do I really have to personally examine all the evidence for evolution before Dr. Kroto would "allow" me to believe it is true, or can I trust in my understanding of the scientific process enough to realize that for anything to reach that level of certainty in the scientific community it is probably safe to trust in their findings without personally having to review them in detail?
I mean, I know that there are professionals in the various fields dedicating significant time and effort to these subjects... why should I focus my personal attention on all the evidence for the sun going around the Earth when it has been well established by institutions and methods I trust?
Yes, I understand that the underlying concept of being "very careful and questioning everything" is important to science... but it seems ridiculous to say that each indivual needs to apply it to every finding... we should be able to build on the efforts of those that have come before us... taking their findings as a base and then spending our efforts finding the evidence for the next steps... not the previous ones.
Sure I understand that sometimes long standing scientific beliefs are overturned, and that we need to keep our minds open to change and continue working on even well established principles, but we all know the likelyhood of major changes to our understanding of events for established things like the sun going around the Earth is vanishingly small. At some point it is pretty safe to trust in the process that has come before and focus our mental efforts on areas less understood as a whole.