Last Updated on 2022-07-08 by Joop Beris
For people who visit this blog more often, it is no secret that I love science. I feel it’s amazing that we humans, in only a few thousand years, have found out so much about our world, the cosmos and our place in it. We owe that understanding to people with inquisitive minds, prepared to follow the evidence where it leads and who dare to question everything. Today, we call these people scientists. In the past, we might have called them heretics.
What intrigues me about science is not just the things it has taught us about the universe and ourselves, it is also the story of science that interests me. The stories that science can tell us. Science can tell us the facts but to the general public, great science is less about the dry facts and more about the narrative that weaves those facts together into the story of our universe. To have great science, we need great storytellers.
The article I linked below is an interview with Michela Massimi, Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh, who in the interview makes a case for the value of scientific narrative to captivate the imagination of the general public, among other things. I found it an enjoyable read and you may find the same.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/questioning-truth-reality-and-the-role-of-science-20180524/