— Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist
The
Meaning of It All is
non-technical book in which Richard Phillips Feynman investigates the
relationship between science and society. This book contains three public
lectures Richard Feynman gave on the theme “A Scientist Looks at Society”
during the John Danz Lecture Series at the University of Washington, Seattle in
April 1963. At the time Richard Feynman was already a highly respected
physicist who played a big role in laying the groundwork for modern particle
physics.
The
three lectures were not published at the time, because, despite requests by the
University of Washington Press, Richard Feynman did not want them to be
printed. The Meaning of It All was published posthumously by Addison–Wesley
in 1998, with the lectures having been transcribed “verbatim” from audio
recordings. Carl Feynman and Michelle Feynman for making this book possible.
In
the first lecture, “The Uncertainty of Science” Feynman explains the nature of
science, that it is a “method for finding things out”, and that it is “based on
the principle that observation is the judge of whether something is so or not”.
He says that uncertainty and doubt in science is a good thing, because it
always keeps the door open for further investigation.
The
second lecture, “The Uncertainty of Values” deals with his views on the
relationship between science, religion and politics. Feynman acknowledges
science's limitations and says that it does not have the value system that
religions have, but adds that it can be used to help in making decisions. He
also stresses the importance of having the freedom to question and explore, and
criticizes the (then) Soviet Union by saying that no government has the right
to decide which scientific principles are correct and which are not.
In
the third lecture, “This Unscientific Age”, the longest of the three, Feynman
discusses his views on modern society and how unscientific it is. Using a
number of anecdotes as examples, he covers a range of topics, including “faith
healing, flying saucers, politics, psychic phenomena, TV commercials, and
desert real estate”.
Lecture
Listing
[01] The
Uncertainty of Science [read]
[02] The
Uncertainty of Values [read]
[03] This
Unscientific Age [read]
My
Additional Lecture’s Choice
[04] What
is Science? [read]
[05] The
Relation of Science and Religion [read]