Being Human: Failure and optimism: science at the edge of uncertainty | Prof Stuart Firestein (Columbia)

The present landscape of biological science raises many issues touching the meaning and challenges of ‘being human’, from AI to biological sex, consciousness, and free will. The Being Human lectures provide a focused exploration of these issues from leading experts in the philosophy of science, humanities, and other fields, offering a forum for broadening scientific thinking.


This series is co-organised by James DiFrisco and Güneş Taylor from the Crick with Professor Barry Smith from the University of London's Institute of Philosophy.


The lecture will be given by Stuart Firestein in the Crick Auditorium, followed by a facilitated panel discussion. These lectures are non-technical and accessible to a multidisciplinary audience.


About the talk: The popular perception of science can bear little resemblance to its actual practice by professional scientists. Instead of a rule-based, methodical system for gathering facts, science is more often a bumbling and idiosyncratic search for understanding under conditions of high uncertainty. In this talk, Stuart Firestein will describe how failure and ignorance are not only inevitable aspects of science but essential to scientific progress. He will explore how the possibility of failure, and the drive that comes from ignorance, mean that things can always be different from what we currently think. In this respect, doing science stands apart from other human activities for its optimism. Embracing uncertainty is crucial to sound science, and visible ownership of uncertainty can create a more helpful image of science for the general public.


Our speaker: Stuart Firestein is Professor of Neuroscience and former Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. His laboratory is one of the world’s leading laboratories on the neuroscience of our sense of smell. He has published over 100 scientific papers and presented his work at numerous national and international meetings, and he regularly consults for the fragrance and flavour industry.


In addition to his laboratory research Professor Firestein is deeply engaged in science communication and science policy. He is a fellow of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the Fractal Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute. He has published two books on the inner workings of science for a popular audience. Ignorance, how it drives science, and Failure, Why Science is so Successful. Both books have been translated into more than 12 languages and are widely used in university philosophy and science classes and in many high school classes.


Firestein has appeared on numerous NPR and BBC programs as well as on a series on ignorance from The Rest is Politics, and he has written pieces and essays in the LA Times, NY times, Wired magazine, Quanta magazine, Nautilus magazine.