Byers The Blind Spot

Science and the Crisis of Uncertainty
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3815-8
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

Why absolute certainty is impossible in science

In today's unpredictable and chaotic world, we look to science to provide certainty and answers—and often blame it when things go wrong. The Blind Spot reveals why our faith in scientific certainty is a dangerous illusion, and how only by embracing science's inherent ambiguities and paradoxes can we truly appreciate its beauty and harness its potential.

Crackling with insights into our most perplexing contemporary dilemmas, from climate change to the global financial meltdown, this book challenges our most sacredly held beliefs about science, technology, and progress. At the same time, it shows how the secret to better science can be found where we least expect it—in the uncertain, the ambiguous, and the inevitably unpredictable. William Byers explains why the subjective element in scientific inquiry is in fact what makes it so dynamic, and deftly balances the need for certainty and rigor in science with the equally important need for creativity, freedom, and downright wonder. Drawing on an array of fascinating examples—from Wall Street's overreliance on algorithms to provide certainty in uncertain markets, to undecidable problems in mathematics and computer science, to Georg Cantor's paradoxical but true assertion about infinity—Byers demonstrates how we can and must learn from the existence of blind spots in our scientific and mathematical understanding.

The Blind Spot offers an entirely new way of thinking about science, one that highlights its strengths and limitations, its unrealized promise, and, above all, its unavoidable ambiguity. It also points to a more sophisticated approach to the most intractable problems of our time.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Byers, William

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Mathematik Allgemein
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Naturwissenschaften, Technik, Medizin
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface: The Revelation of Uncertainty vii

Chapter 1: The Blind Spot 1

Chapter 2: The Blind Spot Revealed 17

Chapter 3: Certainty or Wonder? 38

Chapter 4: A World in Crisis! 59

Chapter 5: Ambiguity 69

Chapter 6: Self-Reference: The Human Element in Science 91

Chapter 7: The Mystery of Number 106

Chapter 8: Science as the Ambiguous Search for Unity 124

Chapter 9: The Still Point 156

Chapter 10: Conclusion: Living in a World of Uncertainty 179

Acknowledgments 187

Notes 189

References 197

Index 203

Über Autor(innen)

William Byers is professor emeritus of mathematics and statistics at Concordia University in Montreal. He is the author of How Mathematicians Think: Using Ambiguity, Contradiction, and Paradox to Create Mathematics (Princeton).