Opinion

OP I N I ON
THE IMPORTANCE OF STUPIDITY IN SCIENTIFIC me he didn’t know how to solve the problem I was having in his
RESEARCH area. I was a third-year grad student and I figured that Taube
knew about a thousand times more than I did (conservative
I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We estimate). If he didn’t have the answer, nobody did.
had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying sci- That’s when it hit me: nobody did. That’s why it was a
ence, though in different areas. She later dropped out of gradu- research problem. And because it was my research problem, it
ate school, went to Harvard Law School, was up to me to solve it. Once I faced that
and is now a senior lawyer for a major envi- fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days.
ronmental organization. At some point, I don’t think students are (It wasn’t really very hard, I just had to try a
the conversation turned to why she left grad made to understand how few things.) The critical lesson was that the
school. To my utter astonishment, she said hard it is to do research, scope of things I didn’t know wasn’t merely
it was because it made her feel stupid. After and how very, very hard vast—it was for all practical purposes infi-
a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, it is to do important nite. That realization, instead of being dis-
she was ready to do something else. research. It’s a lot harder couraging, was liberating. If our ignorance
I had thought of her as one of the than taking even very is infinite, the only possible course of action
brightest people I knew, and her subse- demanding courses. is to muddle through as best we can.
quent career supports that view. What she I’d like to suggest that our Ph.D. pro-
said bothered me. I kept thinking about it grams often do students a disservice in two
and sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel ways. First, I don’t think students are made to understand
stupid, too. It’s just that I’ve gotten used to it. So used to it, in how hard it is to do research, and how very, very hard it is to
fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I do important research. It’s a lot harder than taking even very
wouldn’t know what to do without it. I even think it’s supposed demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is
to be this way. immersion in the unknown. We just don’t know what we’re
Let me explain. doing. We can’t be sure if we’re asking the right question or
For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked sci- doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the
ence in high school and college is that we were good at it. That result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for
can’t be the only reason; fascination with understanding the grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that,
physical world and an emotional need to discover new things doing significant research is intrinsically hard, and changing
has to enter into it, too. But high school and college science departmental, institutional, or national policies will not suc-
means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting ceed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.
the right answers on tests. The framework is one in which there The second point is that we don’t do a good enough job
are right answers and, if you know those answers, you do well of teaching our students how to be productively stupid. That
and get to feel smart. if we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying. I’m not
A Ph.D., where you have to do a research project, is a whole talking about “relative stupidity,” where the other students in
different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I the class actually read the material, think about it, and ace the
possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant dis- exam while you don’t. I’m also not talking about bright people
coveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the con- who might be working in areas that don’t match their talents.
clusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and Science involves confronting our “absolute stupidity.” That
see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to
occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams
and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I used to pes- have the right idea when the faculty committee pushes until
ter the various faculty in my department who were experts in the student starts getting the answers wrong or gives up and
the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when says “I don’t know.” The point of the exam isn’t to see if stu-
Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later) told dents get all the answers right. If they do, it’s the faculty who

doi: 10.1785/gssrl.82.1.3 Seismological Research Letters Volume 82, Number 1 January/February 2011 3
failed. The point is to identify a student’s right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confi-
weaknesses—partly to see where he or she The more comfortable dence and emotional resilience help. But I
needs to invest some effort and partly to see we become with being think scientific education might do more
whether the student’s knowledge fails at a stupid, the deeper we to ease what is a very big transition: from
sufficiently high level that he or she is ready will wade into the learning what other people once discovered
to take on a research project. unknown and the more to making your own discoveries. The more
Productive stupidity means being igno- likely we are to make comfortable we become with being stupid,
rant by choice. Focusing on important ques- big discoveries. the deeper we will wade into the unknown
tions puts us in the awkward position of and the more likely we are to make big dis-
being ignorant. One of the beautiful things coveries.
about science is that it allows us to bumble
along, getting it wrong time after time, and yet feeling perfectly Martin A. Schwartz
fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this University of Virginia
can be difficult for students accustomed to getting the answers mas5bm@eservices.virginia.edu

4 Seismological Research Letters Volume 82, Number 1 January/February 2011