Einstein joked that “to punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate made me an authority myself.” His contempt was achieved honestly: he knew that his originality was based on doubting authority, by asking questions that challenge accepted answers. By becoming an authority himself, he had become someone who should be doubted, rather than a scientist whose role is to doubt. This is, in many ways, a fundamental challenge facing science: how to keep acquiring knowledge and wisdom through hard-won skepticism while also becoming experts who society turns to for certainty.
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