Ignorance by Stuart Firestein; It’s Not Rocket Science by Ben Miller – review by Adam Rutherford
From the review, speaking of “Ignorance” by Stuart Firestein, Adam writes:
Stuart Firestein, a teacher and neuroscientist, has written a splendid and admirably short book about the pleasure of finding things out using the scientific method. He smartly outlines how science works in reality rather than in stereotype. His MacGuffin – the plot device to explore what science is – is ignorance, on which he runs a course at Columbia University in New York. Although the word “science” is derived from the Latin scire (to know), this misrepresents why it is the foundation and deliverer of civilisation. Science is to not know but have a method to find out. It is a way of knowing.
Firestein is also quick to dispel the popular notion of the scientific method, more often than not portrayed as a singular thing enshrined in stone. The scientific method is more of a utility belt for ignorance. Certainly, falsification and inductive reasoning are cornerstones of converting unknowns to knowns. But much published research is not hypothesis-driven, or even experimental, and yet can generate robust knowledge. We also invent, build, take apart, think and simply observe. It is, Firestein says, akin to looking for a black cat in a darkened room, with no guarantee the moggy is even present. But the structure of ignorance is crucial, and not merely blind feline fumbling.
The size of your questions is important, and will be determined by how much you know. Therein lies a conundrum of teaching science. Questions based on pure ignorance can be answered with knowledge. Scientific research has to be born of informed ignorance, otherwise you are not finding new stuff out. Packed with real examples and deep practical knowledge, Ignorance is a thoughtful introduction to the nature of knowing, and the joy of curiosity.
Not to slight “It’s Not Rocket Science,” but I am much more sympathetic to discussions of the “…structure of ignorance…” and how we model those structures.
If you are interested in such arguments, consider the Oxford Handbook of Skepticism. I don’t have a copy (you can fix that if you like) but it is reported to have good coverage of the subject of ignorance.