Perspectives Blog Post: Uncertainty is inevitable at the frontiers of knowledge

"Uncertainty is inevitable at the frontiers of knowledge"

My first thought as I read this quote is how it could be truthfully applied to almost any area of knowledge. The word 'frontiers,' implies the beginning of something new, which is always fraught with uncertainty.  I mainly think of science, and people who think that once something has been proven over and over, it is set in stone.  For example, many people believe that global warming is an impending threat to our society; however, they may not consider that the earth experiences different temperatures overtime, and goes through various cycles of heating and cooling.  Although many theories such as gravity are hard to dispute, science is not technically completely certain.  A frontier is a borderline; therefore, this quote could apply to borderline/ 'grey area' information in an area of knowledge.  Uncertainty is inevitable in this field because not everything is defined.  One thing I think this quote might falsely imply is that the uncertainty doesn't exist in other parts of knowledge.  Although it might be significantly less, uncertainty always lingers in knowledge.  Even in seemingly 'set in stone' areas of knowledge such as math and history, there is still a great amount of uncertainty associated with them.  New discoveries that are made through new technology that sometimes contradict what we know to be true.  Overall, uncertainty is inevitable at the frontiers of knowledge, but this extends to knowledge that is seemingly 'proven to be true.'