Garry Nolan: Science of Being Wrong

Transcript

have I seen an alien body no have I seen a craft on the ground no I can't hand as of yet to a colleague of mine the definitive proof I can show them a library full of evidence uh all of which points to that there's something here is it evidence is not proof data is not evidence evidence is contextualized data proof actually only really happens in math you know the important thing I think for your audience to understand if they're not a scientist or or an engineer is that a scientist is meant to be wrong every day what you put out is part of the story of a search for truth and so what I say today will be recontextualize tomorrow when I collect more data and we've seen that in physics over the decades you know everything from Newton through uh Maxwell's equations through uh Einstein and then quantum mechanics we still don't know what the answer is but tomorrow or next week or next year there'll be a new theory that maybe gives a better picture of what is so I think the the audience needs to understand that the objective of a science scientist is to be wrong today but wrer tomorrow