“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.” — Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman, an educator and a Nobel prize-winner in physics stated that “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”. He was referring to consensus science, the modern type of political science which determines policies through the weight of expert consensus. It is not empirical science. Real science subjects itself to scrutiny – in fact, it welcomes it.
In context, here’s what Freyman wrote:
“We have many studies in teaching, for example, in which people make observations and they make lists and they do statistics, but they do not thereby become established science, established knowledge. They are merely an imitative form of science…The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are – experts. You teachers who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, maybe you can doubt the experts once in a while. Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” 1
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities.1
The term lends a scientific name and explanation to a problem that many people immediately recognize—that fools are blind to their own foolishness. As Charles Darwin wrote in his book The Descent of Man, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
