Pursuit of Ignorance Summary and Response

In neuroscientist and Columbia professor Stuart Firestein’s Ted Talk, The Pursuit of Ignorance, the idea of science being about knowing everything is discussed. Firestein says there is a common misconception among students, and everyone else who looks at science, that scientists know everything. Science is seen as something that is an efficient mechanism that retrieves and organizes data. What Firestein says is often forgotten about is the ignorance surrounding science. He emphasizes the idea that scientists do not discuss everything that they know, but rather everything that they do not. Science, to Firestein, is about asking questions and acknowledging the gap of knowledge in the scientific community. Science keeps growing, and with that growth comes more people don’t know. There may be a great deal of things the world of science knows, but there is more that they do not know. Firestein states, “Knowledge generates ignorance.” Firestein acknowledges that there is a great deal of ignorance in education. In the age of technology, he says the secondary school system needs to change because facts are so readily available now due to sites like Google and Wikipedia. Firestein believes that educators and scientists jobs are to push students past these boundaries and look outside of the facts. A contributing problem to the lack of interest in doing so, Firestein states, is the current testing system in America. He says that when children are young they are fascinated by science, but as they grow older this curiosity almost vanishes. The reason for this is something Firestein’s colleague calls The Bulimic Method of Education, which involves shoving a huge amount of information down the throats of students and then they throw it back up into tests. In the end, Firestein encourages people to try harder to keep the interest in science alive in the minds of students everywhere, and help them realize no one knows it all.



In Sturart Firestein’s Ted Talk, the Pursuit of Ignorance, he makes several comments about our current education system and the lack of interest in science many students have today. Stuart suggests several things we can do to get students to step outside of the boundaries of facts. He starts off his speech saying that in one of the classes he used to teach, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience 1, he presented his students with the required text; a 1,414 page book created by three of the top neuroscientists. Firestein said he eventually realized that the way he was presenting this information to his students was causing some problems, particularly making them believe that scientists only collected facts and data, and put them into books. This gave them the impression that scientists know everything. He also accuses the current testing system we have as a main reason for students not wanting to go looking further. Firestein says that because facts are so readily available due to sources like Google and Wikipedia, students don’t search for more. He also credits the current testing system we have in America as a cause for students lack of interest in pursuing science. What educators need to do is edit the way they present information, and emphasize that while there is so much that scientists do know, there is so much more that they don’t. Acknowledging ignorance is important. I agree that knowledge is almost always portrayed as something set in stone, something that everyone knows. It is in the classes where I am asked to question what I know that I learn more, and grow as a student. We need to fuel this curiosity in students, Firestein says, and make them realize how exhilarating the unknown can be.