Science is not a philosophy or a spiritual path; it's a way of behaving in the world. But since tribalism and polarization have made "alternative facts" a reality of public life, there is something we can learn from science to help us navigate the troubled waters and find a more resilient civic life. The lesson begins with understanding the right relationship not to knowing but to not knowing. To be blunt, if we want to fight ignorance, we must start with our own."

"Last year, I wrote about the dangerous public turn away from expertise. As Tom Nichols wrote in his book The Death of Expertise, we've found ourselves in a strange position in which people who know almost nothing about difficult and complicated subjects are righteous in their rejection of others who have spent years studying those very same fields."