Have you ever wondered what role ignorance played in science. Ignorance plays an important role in scientific research. Ignorance is one of the most important aspects of science. The role of ignorance in scientific research is to bring people together, share each other’s knowledge and research, and drive people to figure out the unknown.

In the Introduction of Ignorance: How it drives science, Stuart Firestein uses metaphors to help the readers know what going through the science process feels like. Stuart explains “It is certainly more accurate than the more common metaphor of scientists patiently piecing together a giant puzzle.” (Firestein 1). He uses this metaphor to compare science to piecing together a big puzzle. He also describes, “I know that this view of the scientific process-feeling around in dark rooms, bumping into unidentifiable things, looking for barely perceptible phantoms-is contrary to that held by many people, especially by non scientists.” (Firestein 1). He uses this metaphor to give the readers a good understanding of what science is like. Stuart uses both of these metaphors to compare what regular people think of science to what science is really like. Throughout the book, Stuart Firestein repeats the word ignorance more than ten times. The definition of ignorance is having a lack or information or knowledge. Stuart stressed that science was not a collection of facts, but trying to figure out the unknown. Firestein repeats the word ignorance so that readers can capture the real definition of science. I say that is a very important part in science because it makes people curious and drives people to figure out what they don’t understand. Curiosity is what make people eager to find out what they don’t know.

In Pure Science:An Old Name with Some New Ways of Thinking, Shreyas Vissapragada uses people with similar ideas as him to help prove his claim. Vissapragada mentions “As Neil deGrasse Tyson, the popular astrophysicist, put it in COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey, ‘Science is a cooperative enterprise, spanning the generations. It’s the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher, a community of minds reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars’(Tyson). The nature of science has changed: it isn’t competitive; it’s collaborative.”(Vissapragada 2). He uses Neil deGrasse Tyson to persuade his readers that science is not a competition but a collaboration. Throughout the article, Vissapragada repeats the word collaborative multiple times. Collaborative means people or groups working together to reach a common goal. He repeats the word collaborative so that his readers can understand that science is a group effort and not a competition. I say that working together is also a very important part in science because countries can share their discoveries and help each other find the answers that they are looking for. Just like the phrase, two minds are better than one.

In As WE May Think, Vannevar Bush illustrates to us readers the ways science has benefited us. Bush says “Of what lasting benefit has been man’s use of science and of the new instruments which his research has brought to existence? First, they have increased his control of his material environment. They have improved his food, his clothing, his shelter; … They have given him increased knowledge of his own biological processes so that he has had a progressive freedom from disease and an increase span of life.” (Bush 2). He listed the different ways science has helped us for years. Bush also includes strands that mean the same thing in his article. He used strands like “partnership”, “great team”, “common cause”, “combined effort”, and “allies”. These strands all relate to teamwork. Throughout the article, Bush mentions all of the instruments we created and strands that relates to teamwork to show why this knowledge should be made more accessible. I say that knowledge should be made more accessible because this would allow scientists to help each other out in discovering the unknown.

Overall, the role of ignorance in scientific research is to drive people to figure out the unknown, bring people together, share each other’s knowledge and research. Ignorance drive people to want to figure out the unknown. Ignorance also allows people to work together to find out the unknown and share each other’s knowledge on the unknown. People’s curiosity and teamwork can help create more technological advancements and instruments that would make all our lives easier.

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