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In today's unpredictable and chaotic world, we look to science to provide certainty and answers--and often blame it when things go wrong. The Blind Spot reveals why our faith in scientific certainty is a dangerous illusion, and how only by embracing science's inherent ambiguities and paradoxes can we truly appreciate its beauty and harness its potential. Crackling with insights into our most perplexing contemporary dilemmas, from climate change to the global financial meltdown, this book challenges our most sacredly held beliefs about science, technology, and progress. At the same time, it shows how the secret to better science can be found where we least expect it--in the uncertain, the ambiguous, and the inevitably unpredictable. William Byers explains why the subjective element in scientific inquiry is in fact what makes it so dynamic, and deftly balances the need for certainty and rigor in science with the equally important need for creativity, freedom, and downright wonder. Drawing on an array of fascinating examples--from Wall Street's overreliance on algorithms to provide certainty in uncertain markets, to undecidable problems in mathematics and computer science, to Georg Cantor's paradoxical but true assertion about infinity--Byers demonstrates how we can and must learn from the existence of blind spots in our scientific and mathematical understanding. The Blind Spot offers an entirely new way of thinking about science, one that highlights its strengths and limitations, its unrealized promise, and, above all, its unavoidable ambiguity. It also points to a more sophisticated approach to the most intractable problems of our time.

Uncertainty (Information theory) --- Science --- Measure of uncertainty (Information theory) --- Shannon's measure of uncertainty --- System uncertainty --- Information measurement --- Probabilities --- Questions and answers --- Science and society --- Sociology of science --- Social aspects. --- Acknowledgment (creative arts and sciences). --- Algorithm. --- Ambiguity. --- Analogy. --- Approximation. --- Axiom. --- Axiomatic system. --- Basic research. --- Big O notation. --- Calculation. --- Certainty. --- Chaos theory. --- Circumference. --- Computation. --- Concept. --- Conjecture. --- Consciousness. --- Consistency. --- Contingency (philosophy). --- Continuous function. --- Continuum hypothesis. --- Contradiction. --- Counting. --- David Bohm. --- Dynamism (metaphysics). --- Emergence. --- Euclidean geometry. --- Explanation. --- Feeling. --- Fermat's Last Theorem. --- Geometry. --- Gestalt psychology. --- Gregory Chaitin. --- Gödel's incompleteness theorems. --- Human behavior. --- Human intelligence. --- Hypothesis. --- Ideology. --- Inference. --- Integer. --- Irrational number. --- Learning. --- Logic. --- Logical reasoning. --- Mathematician. --- Mathematics. --- Measurement. --- Methodology. --- Modernity. --- Molecule. --- Natural number. --- Nature. --- Paradigm shift. --- Paradox. --- Participant. --- Phenomenon. --- Philosopher. --- Philosophy of mathematics. --- Philosophy of science. --- Philosophy. --- Platonism. --- Prediction. --- Principle. --- Probability. --- Pythagoreanism. --- Qualitative property. --- Quantification (science). --- Quantity. --- Quantum mechanics. --- Randomness. --- Rational number. --- Rationality. --- Real number. --- Reality. --- Reason. --- Reductionism. --- Relationship between religion and science. --- Result. --- Science. --- Scientific method. --- Scientific progress. --- Scientific theory. --- Scientist. --- Self-reference. --- Set theory. --- Special case. --- Subatomic particle. --- Subjectivity. --- Suggestion. --- Technology. --- The Philosopher. --- Theorem. --- Theoretical physics. --- Theory of everything. --- Theory. --- Thomas Kuhn. --- Thought. --- Uncertainty. --- Universality (philosophy). --- Writing. --- Sociology of knowledge