A Celebration of Ignorance

Abstract

Congratulations to Science for shifting paradigms in the 125th Anniversary issue ([125 questions: what don't we know?, 1 July][1]), not only by focusing on what leading contemporary scientists “don't know,” but also by unabashedly labeling this collection of 125 important unanswered questions as a “survey of scientific ignorance.” Back in 1984, based on my mentor Lewis Thomas' whimsical suggestion ([1][2]), my late husband and I brought ignorance out of the closet by creating the University of Arizona's “Curriculum on Medical Ignorance” (featuring a Summer Institute, distinguished visiting “ignorami,” and ignorance logs and exercises) to teach medical and later undergraduate and K-12 students and science teachers how to recognize and deal with ignorance—“what we know we don't know, don't know we don't know, and think we know but don't”—about a wide range of medical and scientific topics ([2][3]). Our curriculum has resulted in various ignorance-based publications, presentations, media coverage, and products, earning me the dubious title of “Ignorama Mama,” mother of the global ignorance movement. Indeed, all learning and discovery do take place in the terrain of ignorance, not knowledge, and it is questions, questioning, and questioners that impel scientific advances. These mysteries and puzzles, not dry facts and pat answers, should also drive science education as well as the research enterprise. A Wall Street Journal editorial ([3][4]) paradoxically hailed our evolution from the Information Age to the “Age of Ignorance,” where we can recuse ourselves from excessive information, admit we don't know, and humbly “google” or grope our way through what we need to know. And newly minted Nobel physicist David Gross lauded “ignorance—the most important product of knowledge” as “lucky for science, scientists, and the Nobel Foundation” ([4][5]). 1. 1.[↵][6] 1. J. B. Wyngaarden, 2. L. H. Smith 1. L. Thomas , in Cecil Textbook of Medicine, J. B. Wyngaarden, L. H. Smith, Eds. (W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, 1982), 16. p. xli, xliii. 2. 2.[↵][7] See [www.medicine.arizona.edu/ignorance][8] and . 3. 3.[↵][9] 1. H. Stein , “The age of ignorance,” Wall Street J. A10 (11 June 1993). 4. 4.[↵][10] 1. D. Gross , Science News 167((no. 4)), 59 (2005). [OpenUrl][11] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.309.5731.75 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #ref-3 [5]: #ref-4 [6]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [7]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2. in text [8]: http://www.medicine.arizona.edu/ignorance [9]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3. in text [10]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4. in text [11]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DScience%2BNews%26rft.volume%253D167%26rft.issue%253D%2528no.%2B4%2529%26rft.spage%253D59%26rft.atitle%253DSCIENCE%2BNEWS%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx