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Scientists with something to sell have lost Americans’ trust in science. This new philosophy can restore that trust

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Uncertainty creates anxiety. We feel we live in uncertain times — and so did almost every generation before us, probably all the way back to the Stone Age, where uncertainty lurked everywhere. In fact, we have far more control over our fates than any previous generation. And yet uncertainty still plagues us.  

But the most recent advances in science are producing good reasons to embrace uncertainty. We are learning that it is a fundamental characteristic of the universe, a place ruled mostly by randomness and probability. If that’s unsettling, consider the alternative: a universe that is governed by immutable laws and is simply ticking away like a perfectly running clock with everything occurring as it had been determined since the very first microsecond of its existence.

Randomness, and the uncertainty that accompanies it, is a powerful force. Learning to use it has resulted in new insights about complex systems from living creatures to black holes. Even more important, randomness and uncertainty are forces of optimism. Every instance of chance is an opportunity for science to overcome something that once plagued us.

How can this be the case?

Niels Bohr, one of the founding scientists of quantum mechanics,........

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