Science and Uncertainty
Jan. 13, 2000
First Principle of Science: "You may be mistaken."
Selected quotations from Bronowski (1974) on "Knowledge or certainty": (from The Ascent of Man (1974, Time/Life Films), broadcast by PBS some years ago. The material shown in class is from Episode #11, "Knowledge or certainty".)
€"There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they be scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. That is the human condition, and that is what quantum physics says."
€"In the act of recognition, a judgment is built in ‹ an area of tolerance or uncertainty. . . . No events, not even atomic events, can be described with certainty, with zero tolerance."
€"All knowledge, all information between human beings, can only be exchanged within a play of tolerance ‹ and that is whether it is in science, or in literature, or in religion, or in politics, or in any form of thought that aspires to dogma."
€"It is said that science will dehumanize people, and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false.

"Look for yourself: This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of 4 million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance; it was done by dogma; it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

"Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know, although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: 'I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.' "

Sources of uncertainty, error, and other imperfections in scientific knowledge:
€ Observations are inherently uncertain and imperfect. Why?
€Why does Bronowski say that observations and knowledge involve judgments, and that they are personal? Are observations and knowledge necessarily subjective? Are we really unable to separate personal judgments from descriptions of objective reality?
€What might be some implications for psychological science of Bronowski's view that "all knowledge, all information between juman beings, can only be exchanged within a play of tolerance . . . " ? Why might a belief in the potential perfection of knowledge be dangerous?