Interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson
MSNBC has an excellent interview with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. It comes in five sections on the web site, but let me just quote one little thing to whet your appetite:
Q: It’s always more newsworthy if a scientist is puzzled by something.
A: But we’re always puzzled by something. And that fact is never conveyed. People think we have some kind of easy-chair arrogance, where someone says, “Oh, this will force everyone to forfeit their cherished theories.” Excuse me, but if you have something that works better than my theory, I’ll throw mine out in a minute. What we’re trying to do here is get closer to nature. The caricature of science is that we hold tight to the theories we have, and shun challenges to them. That’s just not true. In fact, we hold our highest rewards for those scientists who can prove others wrong. And by the way, they are famous in their own lifetimes. We don’t wait until they’re dead.
The whole thing is great. Go read it.
I’ve enjoyed his Nova documentaries, and the interview was excellent. On the point you quoted, it’s true that many scientists are open to (and expect) challenges to their pet theories. However, there are a lot who don’t. Politics and power-mongering play significant roles in science, as they do in most other endeavors.