Stuart Firestein is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where his highly popular course on ignorance invites working scientists to come talk to students each week about what they don’t know. Dedicated to promoting science to a public audience, he serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program for the Public Understanding of Science and was awarded the 2011 Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship and teaching. He was also recently named an AAAS Fellow.
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Why Science Needs Failure to Succeed
Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein says that in science, “one must try to fail because it is the only strategy to avoid repeating the obvious.”
Can Failure Be an End in Itself?
Science is constantly being revised, and failure is crucial to the process.
Why Ignorance Trumps Knowledge in Scientific Pursuit
Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein discusses why ignorance is key to scientific discovery.