Brilliant, yet humble, ideas

Science begins and ends with humility.

Or at least the 2018 collection of scientific essays called This Idea Is Brilliant does. The book, edited by John Brockman, includes scores of short responses to The Edge Question of 2017: "What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?"

The replies to that question are many and varied, yet the second essay in the book, by psychologist Adam Waytz suggests The Illusion of Explanatory Depth. Basically this means the less we know the more we think we know. Waytz concludes, "Only through gaining expertise in a topic do people recognize its complexity and calibrate their confidence accordingly." The IOED, as he calls it, "provides us with much-needed humility."

The book's last essay returns to that theme, and in fact is called Humility. Barnaby Marsh, an evolutionary dynamics scholar, argues that even the most brilliant scientific ideas are usually replaced, or at least amended, at some point in the future by some other brilliant scientific ideas. Brilliant ideas are less conclusions than steps along the way.

Within that framework we read 500 pages full of amazing ideas, most of which pass over the heads of laymen like myself. Take Parallel Universes of Quantum Mechanics or Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, for example. Yet researcher Peter Norwig argues for Counting as a scientific concept worth greater emphasis. Too many people, both in science and out, simply aren't doing the math, he says.

On the topic of Premature Optimization, writer Kevin Kelly argues that "the greatest source of failure is prior success." You don't need a degree in science to understand that. Once you've reached the top, it's all downhill. Unless you are Tom Brady, of course.

Journalism professor Charles Seife makes a case for The Texas Sharpshooter. This is a reference to the story about the Texan who shot holes in the side of his barn, then drew a bullseye around each one. Similarly, some researchers seem to have a talent for adjusting their objectives to fit their findings.

So there is much to appreciate in Brockman's book. If you don't understand one brief essay, just stay humble, admit it and go on to the next.