IT COULD BE OTHERWISE

A profound argument for science that embraces uncertainty and promotes possibility, creativity, and the belief that we can shape, if not determine, our future

The search for certainty is embedded deep in the mythos of science. Science is expected to provide definitive answers based on immutable and universal laws. It seeks to answer the question: If we do this, what must necessarily follow?

In It Could Be Otherwise, however, biologist Stuart Firestein rejects this idea; science isn't about discerning what must be, but what is possible. The classic view of science, Firestein argues, reduces the world to bland predictability and us to mere automatons. Firestein's vision is its opposite: modern discoveries of deep uncertainty, even unknowability, in evolution, complexity, and physics show that our actions not strictly governed - and that science is an agent of our freedom.

In our contemporary age, suspicion of science and its certainties is deep. It Could Be Otherwise argues that science isn't about deciphering what the universe has already determined - instead, science offers possibilities. It invites us not to be prisoners of destiny, but helmsmen of our own fates.

Stuart Firestein is a professor of neuroscience at Columbia University and member of the Santa Fe Institute. He has published over 100 scientific papers in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, and Neuron. He is a Guggenheim fellow, and a fellow and consultant for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is also the author of Ignorance and Failure. He lives in New York City.