Ignorance: How It Drives

Continuing the theme diversifying content, we are sharing a link from NPR‘s Talk of the Nation. Recently, on Science Friday, Ira Flatow spoke with neuroscientist Stuart Firestein on the latter’s recent publication Ignorance: How It Drives Science Forward, outlining an important realization not unique to the scientific community.

“…answers have become so easy and so readily available that I think we now have too much emphasis on answers and not enough on questions” [*]

For more from icnt.mx, including the full interview with Firestein, continue beneath the fold.

Read the full transcript of Stuart Firestein’s interview on NPR.org

Applicable to the entirety of the human experience; succumbing to ignorance is essential in creating opportunities for breakthroughs. Constant personalization and the wide-spread growth of dismissing any criticism as the product of ‘haters’ encourage homogeneity, and ultimately stagnation. Thankfully there are a number of people looking long-term at this issue citing personalized news services such as Zite or Google News “a blow against innovation.”

Understandably an algorithm-based behavior profile is going to keep contrarian opinions at arms length but the long term repercussions of the isolation is a valid concern.

“When we go to meeting together and talk or go out to the bar and have a beer or whatever, we never talk about what we know. We talk about what we don’t know, what we need to know, what we’d like to know, what we think we could know, what we may not even know we don’t know just yet and things of that nature. And that’s what propels the whole operation along.” [*]

It is easy to draw inspiration and ideas from sources that are new and consequently interesting. The project at Everything Is A Remix is arguably one of the best examples of how drawing outside influence is an essential part of the creative process; and as long as there is valid attribution where possible there should be no shame in borrowing ideas and influences externally

Now take a moment and embrace your ignorance while you still can.

Read the full transcript of Stuart Firestein’s interview on NPR.org