Consistent Uncertainty

By Ramesh Akkineni

Consistent Uncertainty

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of 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 going 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 everybody 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 very 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.

Source: What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton. In Richard Feynman, the pleasure of finding things out, pg. 146.

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