Wisdom Of The Week

The Three Values of Science - Brilliant lesson from Richard Feynman.

1. The first way in which science is of value is familiar to everyone. It is that scientific knowledge enables us to do all kinds of things and to make all kinds of things. Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad - but it does not carry instructions on how to use it.
2. Another value of science is the fun called intellectual enjoyment which some people get from reading and learning and thinking about it, and which others get from working in it. With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries - certainly a grand adventure!
3. I would now like to turn to a third value that science has - The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. Now, we scientists... 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 this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permitting us to question - to doubt - to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. Herein lies a responsibility to society. "If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar (to do so leads to what he described as an "open channel). It is our responsibility as scientists... to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.