n the opening chapter of his famous Lectures on Physics, Richard Feynman pondered the nature of science, the laws of physics, and the best way to teach it all. He emphasized that much of the vast accumulation of scientific knowledge could be condensed into some essential principles that allowed all sorts of sophisticated deductions
In his reply, Feynman went on to demonstrate just how much about the workings of nature could be explained from the idea expressed in that tweet.
In 1988, I wrote a newspaper column expanding on this example, identifying a set of similar principles and ideas that educated people ought to know about science.
- Most of these points were about the process of science, some about the substance of scientific understanding, and most of them would not fit in tweets.
Science successfully explains natural phenomena through rational investigation and logical reasoning
Science explains nature rationally and logically, eschewing superstition and mysticism
- When scientific disputes arise, the ultimate arbiter is not expert authority or common sense but experimental evidence, guided by theory
- Fits as is!. Scientific theories are not “guesses” but are logically rigorous attempts to explain the observed facts of nature and to predict the results of new observations
- Good theories may be superseded by better theories
- There are billions and billions of stars. Life has changed over the eons, with complex creatures evolving from simpler precursors, and humans occupying one branch of an immense family tree of living organisms – all sharing a common molecular machinery driving basic life processes
- All life is related. The way a thing works is often influenced by its connections to other things and the ways that they work
- Networks Are Us. Tweet
- Learn some damn statistics.
There is more to be discovered, and principles today unknown will someday yield their secrets to continued inquiry, if the culture of the future remains educated enough to permit science to survive.
The world is vast, and there is more substance than Twitter can accommodate
- We must learn to let go of our preconceived notions of the world and embrace the unknown
