We’re All Equal in Our Infinite Ignorance

Induction also says that prediction is the main reason for the existence of science, but it's not; it's explanation. You want an explanation of what's going on, even if you can't necessarily predict with any certainty what's going to happen next. In fact, knowing what's going to happen next with some degree of certainty can be deflating, and the unknown can be far more fun than having absolute certitude about what tomorrow will bring.

This brings us to the related point: the science has never settled. We should always be free to have new creativity, a new conjecture. You never know where the best ideas are going to come from, and you have to take everything that's made in good faith seriously. So this idea that the science is settled or the science is closed is nonsense, and it implies that we can all agree upon the process with which we come up with new theories rather through creativity and conjecture.

The door is always open for new people with new ideas to come in and do that. As Popper said, we're all equal in our infinite ignorance. So even if someone claims expertise, they might even be valid in their claim to expertise. There's an infinite number of things they do not know, and those infinite number of things they do not know could affect the things they do know.

So, the child who is coming through school, who is not expert in anything, can still come up with an idea that can challenge the foundations of the greatest expert. Because the expert, like the child, is ignorant about a whole bunch of things. They could have error that does not preclude someone else who lacks that fine-tuned knowledge from being able to point out there's an error and here's a better idea.