Science - Pursuit of 'Objective Truth'
I recently finished masterclass by Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is a cosmologist, astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator. It's absolutely amazing how he describes complex topics in such a simple terms along with examples that are so engaging.
There were basic yet powerful concepts that he discussed in the class. I felt it would be great to share my learnings in a short and very casual summary. Many of us might have seen his advertisement on youtube where he says
A great challenge of life is Knowing enough to think you are right, but not knowing enough to know you are wrong.
Nothing better could have actually encouraged me to listen to him.
These are my personal notes. Anyone reading this should not form misconception about the quality of his classes. I might be a poor student but he is a great teacher by all means.
SCIENTIFIC THINKING
In science, What you know is important; but how you think based on what you know is more important.
Science literacy is all about probing what is “objectively" true. Probing comes from how you think more than what you know, yet both are important.
The exciting frontier in science are questions yet to be asked. Ideas and thoughts that are not even in view today, and might become possibility in future.
Asking question, more importantly the right sort of questions, is core of scientific thinking. A good question is one that seeks objective truth. Something that removes range of uncertainties, well most of it if not all.
As the area of our knowledge grows so as the perimeter of our ignorance.
But as we go beyond a certain threshold of knowledge, there is less to explore. Humans are far away from that stage in science but we will get there someday, if not by ourselves then with help of machines.
Repetition / reoccurrence of something enhances the predictability of events. Is it ‘form’ of science i.e., knowing when something is “predictively repeatable”.
Take it up a notch, Science is deep understanding of occurrence and concepts behind the occurrence, so that we can make prediction of things that has never happened before.
Most of us think of science as being all about facts and data. To a large extent, it is. But, it is about much more than that.
Many of our biggest breakthroughs have come about from thinkers taking that data and coming up with theories i.e, Theory of evolution, theory of relativity, quantum mechanics. They provide a platform for exploration of what has happened, what’s happening and what’s going to happen in future.
Take what ever it takes, not to fool yourself by thinking something is true when it’s not. And also thinking something is not true when it is.
That's the scientific method. It is long learning process, has multiple path to find what’s nearest to truth or is true. In science, truth is ultimately judge, jury and executioner. Your ideas have to map to truth, no matter how long it takes or how many iteration is needed. Truth does not changes. With time and accumulating more knowledge over time, our measurement of truth changes.
COGNITIVE BIAS
Skepticism is not outright rejection of what you don’t want to be true, nor it’s not rejection of what you think is not true.
A skeptic, I mean a true skeptic, is one that questions what they are unsure of, but most importantly recognises when valid evidences are produced.
Eye witness is of highest order in court of law but in court of science “evidence” is what counts. “I saw it OR I am telling you” is not enough evidence in science. Rational and unquestionable evidences have ultimate authority in science.
All of us are susceptible to cognitive bias. It’s human. We all have subjective understanding of objective world.
Human brain is not wired to think around probability and statistics. We value and devalue information to feed our cognitive biases. And we do it unknowingly all the time. More you feed into your objective bias, more bias you develop. Especially in world of internet and constant feed of unauthorised data, we expose ourself to these confirmation biases, its proving to be epitome of cognitive bias.
These biases form a wall around you that sooner or later restrict your scientific thinking. You start believing in unjustified truth to your bones.
Scientific thinking allows us to reduce cognitive bias in order to get closer to objective truth. All measurements in life comes to approximation that you are comfortable with, not that you are accurate but you are comfortable with closeness of approximation to truth. Closeness is subjective.
Be ready to re-evaluate when things do not add up. If you want to be able to get closer to objective truths, you need to be able to say to yourself, in the face of new data, I was wrong.
Those who are bold enough to admit they are wrong are called: lifelong learners. Meaning of ‘precise’ is how close to truth you are, but it’s not necessarily what is accurate. Science challenges one to keep refining whats ‘precise’ to build something that is accurate.
COMMUNICATION
It’s not good enough to be right, it’s equally important to be effective. Being effective is ultimate goal of communication.
Same set of ideas may be presented in different ways in front of different set of audience to ensure it is effective. Before you pump out information, make sure you connecting to the right receptor over an appropriate channel, so that chances of being effective increases.
Understand your audience before you speak.
Wise people don’t speak much because they have kept distilling information to make it smaller, simpler and clearer. Words are bridge between two minds and not between two ears. Choose your words wisely so that your ideas can travel faster and efficiently.
When it comes to discussions, be aware of three things:
- Do you have enough knowledge to conduct an argument about something with someone regarding what is true or not?
- Can you provide references or point to sources that has led you to believe that you have enough knowledge ?
- And lastly, remember that personal opinions have no value in science, it’s evidences that counts.
Writing is ultimate form of communication because it passes through time.
You can talk to someone 100 years from now because of your writing. We all should try to write, it challenges your own brain to rethink multiple time how best you can put words together to make communication effective.
At the end of every major communication, be it talking, discussions or writing an email, ask yourself three simple questions:
- What I wanted to communicate ?
- What I communicated ?
- What I should have communicated ?
When these three match, you have learnt how to communicate.
CONCLUSION
The most important thing you can do in life is to be curious. The more you can stroke curiosity, the more you can get out of life.
Objective truth has more value than anything else.
Objective truth is not limited to individual or to a society or to this earth but across universe and beyond. Scientific thinking is about getting closer to Objective truth.
Scientific thinking has power to humble you, in a good way. We are very tiny part of grandest of plan.
You can follow the full class @ https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-degrasse-tyson-teaches-scientific-thinking-and-communication