This article was originally published for Cambio Ltd. on 11-10-2012. Access it here.
So, it’s the beginning of a new year, and campus is once again filled
with students venturing into the world of university. I will confess I
seem to have reached an age where I find myself thinking “Pull your
trousers up! And get a haircut!” But the beginning of term always gets
me thinking about when I started uni, and how much I felt I knew when I
left. Everything I learned seemed certain.
But you only need to view comments on YouTube to appreciate the
certainty of teenagers. I remember being accused of “acting like I knew
everything”, and if challenged I probably would have agreed that this
was the case. Having seen something I disagreed with it was pretty easy
to conclude that the opposite must be the better option, e.g. I
disagreed with how animals were slaughtered so became a vegetarian.
This certainty was only reinforced by what I was taught in school. By
the end of A-level I was fairly sure I understood the basics of
genetics: DNA, chromosomes, selection, punnet squares. Then I went to
university and learned some more information – it was harder, but still
delivered with a lot of certainty: genes, PCR, GM. It’s great – you come
out of your course feeling you know a whole bunch ‘o’ stuff.
These days, if I’m asked by a student what something is, or why their
experiment hasn’t worked, I can no longer answer their question with any
certainty – despite the fact that my knowledge base is much larger than
it used to be. I find myself saying things like “well, it’s probably
because of…” or “maybe it’s this… show me what you did”. I remember
demonstrators being like that when I was a student, and it drove me mad!
I’d be thinking “you’re meant to be smarter than me, how come you don’t
know?!” When I start answering a question I can hear 19-year-old me
shouting these things in my head, but I just can’t respond any
different. I can see now that being ‘smart’ or knowing more just makes
you aware of all the uncertainties and things that can go wrong.
I also wonder if teaching science with certainty is a useful thing. I
have friends who seem to think that ‘science’ holds all the answers,
when in reality, science is really just a collection of probabilities.
If something happens more than 95 times out of 100, it’s probably right.
But there’s a still a 5% chance it’s wrong. I used to believe that if a
paper showed a result, it was certain. Sadly, now I realise that while
X, Y and Z studies found a result, they may each have had different
equipment, protocols or sample sizes – while studies A, B and C may have
found the opposite result with the same equipment, protocols and sample
sizes. I can only make my best judgement and pray that other academics
think the same way!
I miss certainty. It made me feel clever and knowledgeable. I often take
solace in Socrates quotation that “the only thing I know is that I know
nothing” (although, on investigation it seems that this quotation is
not certain*) as he was by all accounts a rather clever chap. However,
whilst a lack of certainty is certainly a cause of my stupidity
conundrum (see previous posts) I also think it’s kind of liberating:
that nothing is certain means anything is possible. I like that.
*According to the great oracle, Wikipedia, the correct quotation is
“I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything
great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows
nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do.
In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because
I do not fancy I know what I do not know.” I know which version I
prefer.
