On Science, Scientists and Education

September 2006

Our work is particularly valuable not for the wealth or power it produces; there are quicker roads to wealth and power. Instead, science provides a method for generating evidence-based arguments aimed at finding provisional truths. We scientists have the opportunity to develop evidence and to say things about nature that is very likely to be true... Those observations can provide the hard facts upon which others may build the reliable instruments of our policy, of our economy, or our view of the world. That is the scientists' true value to the community. We can also serve as examples to show how others might, in their own lives, reach conclusions by careful assessment of evidence.

The best scientific work stands in contrast to the self-seeking and evidence-evading characteristic of many people, high and low, in public life... Education aimed at the evidence-based pursuit of truth can help the community gain tools for a better understanding of the world. Evidence-based argumentation can help scientists, engineers business people, national leaders - everyone - make better decisions.

Extracted from ''An educational moment?" by Leo Kadanoff, reference frame, Physics Today, September 2006.