Teach Ignorance, Too

PASADENA—Albert Einstein spent some of his last years stalking the wide, palm-lined avenues of this sunny town. According to local legend, he sometimes surprised students in my old school next to the California Institute of Technology by pacing through the open-air hallways while class was in session. His tenderness for children is now well-known from the letters he wrote to them. Children wrote to the famous scientist at the end of his life with questions of science, theology and life. The children were not afraid to show their ignorance to this great man, and to ask the deepest, most fundamental questions.

It was Einstein, of course, who turned physics on its head in the early 20th century by asking—and answering—fundamental questions about classical Newtonian physics. Before his time, many physicists were claiming that the important questions in physics had already been answered and were urging graduate students to consider other career choices.

One hundred years later, those physicists have been succeeded by others who are just as short-sighted. I recently asked a celebrated Harvard biologist what major unresolved questions remained in his field. To my amazement, he said there really were none. All the big, important questions have been answered, he said, and the job of the next generation is simply to fill in the gaps.

This cocksure biologist is wrong, of course. There are still many major unanswered questions in his field, and in all of science. But his bravado is an example of a larger problem, which I’ll call “veritas” syndrome. Although the biologist had an especially virulent form, and the physicists during the late 19th century also suffered from it, this disease is usually so common that it’s nearly imperceptible. The main symptom is the unwillingness to acknowledge and celebrate one’s own ignorance. The children who wrote questions to Einstein about astronomy, biology and the nature of genius were comfortable with their ignorance. Now, as adults, they are only slightly less ignorant. Yet they declare whole areas of inquiry—such as an entire field in biology—nearly solved.

Indeed, at Harvard, the “veritas” syndrome is an epidemic. A Harvard education means one learns a great many things, but never are students systematically taught the most inspiring examples of human ignorance. University President Lawrence H. Summers, for example, thinks students should know the difference between a gene and a chromosome. The Core program aims to instruct students in “ways of knowing,” and concentration tutorials initiate students into the methods of their chosen field. These are all laudable goals, yet they all focus on what is already known. In addition to learning “ways of knowing” in specific fields, students should also learn to identify what they do not know. Rarely will students come across professors or others dwelling on the great unsolved mysteries of Romantic poetry, urban decay or immunology. In some ways, the unwillingness to think at length about the largest, most difficult areas of ignorance is understandable. Knowledge usually moves forward in small steps, and this reality means students see only the smallest, most tractable problems. The great questions of most areas of inquiry remain hidden for students behind a massive thicket of theories, facts and equations that are themselves important to know yet also sometimes beside the point.

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry,” Einstein writes in his “Autobiographical Notes.” Unfortunately, those methods of instruction are still doing damage to students’ sense of wonder and curiosity.

Nevertheless, the current review of the undergraduate curriculum is the perfect time to fix this problem. The University should require that students take a class that deals exclusively with the areas of our civilization’s greatest ignorance in either science, the humanities or the social sciences. How does the brain work? What is the ultimate fate of the universe? Why do economic theories fail so often? Did Homer actually live, and does that even matter? Although these questions will likely not be solved for many years, if ever, they can serve as inspiration. They can define the broad outlines of a life spent searching for answers. Four years at Harvard teaches us all how to give good answers. It should teach us to ask good questions, as well.

When the oracle of Delphi said that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, Socrates was incredulous. His ignorance, after all, was just as great as his fellow Athenians. However, what set Socrates apart was that he knew he was ignorant. When the graduates join the “company of educated men and women” next month, will they know just how ignorant they are? And more importantly, will they want to do something about it?

Jonathan H. Esensten ’04 is a biochemical sciences concentrator in Lowell House. This is his last column.