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Ignorance

Ignorance
作者:Stuart Firestein
副标题:How It Drives Science
出版社:Oxford University Press
出版年:2012-07
ISBN:9780199828074
行业:其它
浏览数:141

内容简介

- The book argues that ignorance, not knowledge, is what drives science

- The book provides a fascinating inside-view of the way every-day science is actually done

- The book features intriguing case histories of how individual scientists use ignorance to direct their research

Knowledge is a big subject, says Stuart Firestein, but ignorance is a bigger one. And it is ignorance—not knowledge—that is the true engine of science.

Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. In fact, says Firestein, more often than not, science is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may not be a cat in the room. The process is more hit-or-miss than you might imagine, with much stumbling and groping after phantoms. But it is exactly this "not knowing," this puzzling over thorny questions or inexplicable data, that gets researchers into the lab early and keeps them there late, the thing that propels them, the very driving force of science. Firestein shows how scientists use ignorance to program their work, to identify what should be done, what the next steps are, and where they should concentrate their energies. And he includes a catalog of how scientists use ignorance, consciously or unconsciously—a remarkable range of approaches that includes looking for connections to other research, revisiting apparently settled questions, using small questions to get at big ones, and tackling a problem simply out of curiosity. The book concludes with four case histories—in cognitive psychology, theoretical physics, astronomy, and neuroscience—that provide a feel for the nuts and bolts of ignorance, the day-to-day battle that goes on in scientific laboratories and in scientific minds with questions that range from the quotidian to the profound.

Turning the conventional idea about science on its head, Ignorance opens a new window on the true nature of research. It is a must-read for anyone curious about science.

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作者简介

Stuart Firestein is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where his highly popular course on ignorance invites working scientists to come talk to students each week about what they don't know. Dedicated to promoting science to a public audience, he serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program for the Public Understanding of Science and was awarded the 2011 Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship and teaching.

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目录

Chapter 1. A Short View of Ignorance

Chapter 2. Finding Out

Chapter 3. Limits, Uncertainty, Impossibility, and Other Minor Problems

Chapter 4. Unpredicting

Chapter 5. The Quality of Ignorance

Chapter 6. Ignorance in Action: Case Histories

Chapter 7. Ignorance beyond the Lab

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读书文摘

一旦脱离了感情,肉欲便蔓延成无边的沙漠,人会在那里忧伤而死

回歸(retour)一詞,希臘語為nostos。Algos意為“痛苦”。由此,nostalgie一詞的意思即是由未滿足的回歸慾望引起的痛苦。

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