What Science Wants To Know Essay Example

In this very skillfully argued essay, the author tells us that science is more dependent on ignorance then on knowledge. He argues that the mountain of facts that our scientific thinkers have erected have resulted in science becoming more specialized and complex. One scientific answer now brings about ten additional questions, the answers to which the scientists are ignorant about. Therefore, science is a study of ignorance.
The author is not entirely correct in his reasoning. Yes, his statements were indeed valid until the latter part of the twentieth century but thinkers have at last come to a way by which the quest for answers can be sorted. Today we are less ignorant today than we were yesterday. As Newton said “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants”. Imagine a skyscraper at the extreme floor of which the fundamentals of truth dwells. In our quest for truth, we do not have to start from the Ground Floor due to the’ mountain of facts’. We find ourselves higher and higher as generations pass, based on our individual intelligence.
Stephen Hawking says, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” To get rid of this illusion, we prioritize our questions to match our society at that stage. Icarus wanted to fly but could not do so as the society had not climbed up the required no of floors. The Wright brothers could. Therefore, it makes sense that we always follow the golden rule when we find ten questions i.e. we list them as to which one may be more relevant to man in this society. Our goal is to strive forward always, in our quest for truth. Sometimes we may come to adjacent dark caverns, through one of which, we have to go. However, we do not know which one. We then have to trust our instincts and select one. This is the pursuit of knowledge not ignorance. Ignorance will be to return from the point due to the uncertainty of the correctness of the route.