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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the varying states of knowledge and uncertainty in the scientific process.
Richard P. Feynman highlights the different levels of understanding and certainty that scientists experience in their work. He suggests that ignorance marks the starting point of inquiry, while having a hunch indicates a step towards potential discovery, and being fairly certain still leaves room for doubt, illustrating the inherent uncertainties in scientific exploration.
In practice
This quote could be used in a science class to explain the nature of scientific inquiry.
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.
Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, itβs also a soaring spiritual experience.
The scientist finds his reward in what Henri Poincare calls the joy of comprehension, and not in the possibility of application to which any discovery may lead.
Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from them, we are certainly very closely related to them. A series of mutations could change us into all kinds of intermediate species. Whether or not those intermediate species are provably in the past, they could easily be in our future.
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
So in regard to mental qualities, their transmission is manifest in our dogs, horses and other domestic animals. Besides special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, bad and good tempers. etc., are certainly transmitted.
Every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.
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