Hierarchies of representation and rigour

Science derives its practical power and authority from the rigour of its arguments and the hardness of its facts. Science education must transmit these qualities. It is not enough to be more or less acquainted with a scientific idea; to understand its meaning, or to use it correctly, one must grasp it firmly and wield it boldly. Everyone knows that science is ‘hard’ to learn; the metaphor should remind us that it also needs to be hard and sharp at the edge where it is to shape our thoughts and the world about us.

This hardness and sharpness are not superficial. The encyclopaedias and data compilations are, of course, full of ‘hard facts’, like the chemical formula for aspirin, or the spectrum of the light from Betelgeuse or the number of hairs on the abdomen of a particular variety of fruit fly. These are of no more importance, in themselves, than such historical hard facts as the date of the execution of Anne Boleyn or the Russian order of battle at Borodino. The peculiar strength of scientific knowledge is that a great many of the known facts have been organized into deeply structured patterns, from which many unknown events can be confidently inferred. History, too, has its regularities, from which much can be learnt, but there is nothing in the humanities to match the distinct categories, unavoidable necessities and reliable predictions of a well-established scientific discipline.