Ignorance: Everything You Need to Know about Not Knowing - Couverture souple

Graef, Robert

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1633883213 ISBN 13 : 9781633883215

Editeur : Prometheus Books, 2017

Synopsis

Sums up the many fields of study where ignorance can undermine our understanding, while showing how an awareness of ignorance can lead to exploration and the discovery of new knowledge.

The flip side of knowledge is ignorance. This book explores the vast scope of ignorance, even in an age when we think we know more than ever before. By marking off this ocean of ignorance into manageable categories, the author provides a kind of navigational chart to the unknown, and a series of red flags to all those who claim certitude.

The book first lays out the many branches of ignorance--in education, the media, politics, religion, science, and other major institutions. It then assesses the costs and consequences of that ignorance. World conflicts, endemic poverty, environmental damage, waste, racism, and the manipulative forces of industry and politics that use propaganda to manipulate the public may all be seen as rooted in ignorance.

But there are positive aspects of ignorance as well. Scientists and artists, by recognizing what they don't know, are spurred on to new creative approaches and discoveries, which would never be found by those too comfortable with the tried and true.

The author cites Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle declared to be the wisest of all people simply because he realized how much he didn't know. This book gives you ways to follow in the path that Socrates forged, to counter the closed minds whose false sense of certainty cannot help but distort reality, and to be better prepared to take on even the most serious challenges of today.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Robert Graef is a retired journalist, school teacher, and businessman, who continues to be active in civic projects in Washington State. He is the author of four previous books and more than six hundred articles published in newspapers and periodicals.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

From Chapter 15 - WORKING FROM AND WITH IGNORANCE

"My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions."

—Peter Drucker


Peter Drucker, a twentieth-century management consultant, looked beyond the limits of small personal universes. His approach rejected scope-limiting frames, and his comments indicated an insight that some treasured beliefs might best be upended. He would have understood that thought processing in the digital age is a new game and that, ready or not, the reality we must deal with is today’s reality, not yesterday’s. Drucker saw how ignorance may be joined with need, knowledge, and vision to do wonderful things. Ignorance in the hands of ignorors is manipulative, but in the hands of creative thinkers, ignorance becomes a launching pad, a base camp, a foundation for thought and discovery.

Some biographies record the struggles of people who survived in the wilderness by conquering overwhelming odds. Others trace the lives of thinkers whose intellectual struggles threw off ignorant traditions to uncover secrets of nature. Whether high born or humble, their habits of early questioning linked with experiences in school and the world to open their minds. And they displayed courage, for it is never comfortable to be a questioner of tradition or orthodoxy. From time to time they made significant progress over not knowing but nothing on the scale of Stephen Hawking’s pursuit of the universal constant. The usual goal is to make a measure of progress, but even accomplishing that requires acknowledging ignorance and facing up to doubts. Far more discovery is granted to the humble than to those who are certain of what they know.

RICHARD P. FEYNMAN, NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS

Feynman combined zest for life with mathematical genius, which made him one of science’s most interesting characters. From his involvement with the Manhattan Project through his Cal Tech years, Feynman’s mind sparkled. Among his few critics was his second wife, who said, “He begins working calculus problems as soon as he awakens. He did calculus while driving in his car, while sitting in the living room and while lying in bed at night.” Feynman wrote,

"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man."

STUART FIRESTEIN, RESEARCHER IN BIOLOGY

Firestein offers what is likely the clearest understanding of positive ignorance. His book Ignorance: How It Drives Science is widely read by philosophers and researchers in every field. He asks the right questions for any time: “Are we too enthralled with the answers these days? Are we afraid of questions, especially those that linger too long?” And then he lays out our current informational situation: “We seem to have come to a phase in civilization marked by a voracious appetite for knowledge in which the growth of information is exponential and perhaps more important, its availability easier and faster than ever.”

As chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, Firestein promotes science as a process of perpetual revision that proceeds in fits and starts from one stage of ignorance to another. Or as Jonah Lehrer put it, “The only way to be creative over time — not to be undone by our expertise — is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don’t fully understand.” Firestein has a knack for bringing the hazy concept of creative ignorance into focus: “Being a scientist requires having faith in uncertainty, finding pleasure in mystery and learning to cultivate doubt. There is no surer way to screw up an experiment than to be certain of its outcome.” While many scientists deal in facts, Firestein wrestles with concepts, as illustrated by his descriptive metaphor for science:

"Science, then, is not like the often-used onion analogy of stripping away layer after layer to get at some core, central, fundamental truth. Rather it’s like the magic well: no matter how many buckets of water you remove there’s always another one to be had. Or even better, it’s like the widening ripples on the surface of a pond, the ever larger circumference in touch with more and more of what’s outside the circle of the unknown. This growing forefront is where science occurs. . . . It is a mistake to bob around in the circle of the facts instead of riding the wave to the great expanse lying outside the circle."

HANS AND OLA ROSLING, GLOBAL HEALTH ACTIVISTS  OF THE KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE, STOCKHOLM

The Roslings are a father and son team who spearheaded the development of Gapminder, a new analytical discipline that gathers and analyzes global data to correct faulty conclusions about the state and direction of health and environmental issues. Gapminder feeds Ola Rosling’s Trendalyzer software with statistical content that it converts to ignorance-dispelling analyses. The project is the third anti-ignorance thrust under the Roslings’ direction, with Gapminder on track to straighten out misunderstanding of statistics and information about social, economic, and environmental issues at local, national, and global levels. Ola Rosling’s Trendalyzer software turns mountains of Gapminder’s confirmed data into easy-to-interpret animated graphics.

In a TED presentation, Hans Rosling gave his audience the same test he had recently given to an assembly of world leaders at Davos, Switzerland. The poor results for both groups demonstrated the profound ignorance of highly educated participants to important world issues, illustrating how sensational news reporting skews attitudes toward the negative, leading to a sense of hopelessness that hijacks the will to make a difference. Thanks to the Roslings’ efforts, the world has a growing and accessible fact tank of digestible, ready-to-apply information that helps override ignorance born of misinformation and irrational fear.

PETER DRUCKER, LEADING MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Drucker taught about the positive impact an outsider’s objectivity can have on companies where management is simply too close to issues and too linked to the traditional practices they attempt to apply to the present. He believed that only an outsider can be equipped to appreciate their specialized blindnesses. Drucker taught managers to recognize that, in spite of their years of experience, they often didn’t know what they should do to fix things because they had never learned to ask the right questions. When students asked him about his success in reviving industries, he told them the same: “There is no secret. You just need to ask the right questions.”

A student once tossed Drucker three rapid-fire challenges: “How do you know the right questions to ask? Aren’t your questions based on your knowledge of the industries in which you consult? How did you have the knowledge and expertise to do this when you were first starting out with no experience?” The student had unwittingly fed Drucker the perfect straight lines to frame his approach. He said,

"I never ask these questions or approach these assignments based on my knowledge and experience in these industries. It is exactly the opposite. I do not use my knowledge and experience at all. I bring my ignorance to the situation. Ignorance is the most important component for helping others to solve any problem in any industry. . . . Ignorance is not such a bad thing if one knows how to use it, and all managers must learn to do this. You must frequently approach problems with your ignorance; not what you think you know from past experience, because not infrequently, what you think you know is wrong."

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Prometheus Books
• Date d'édition: 2017
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1633883213
• ISBN 13: 9781633883215
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 351
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible