It Could Be Otherwise: Science in the Age of Uncertainty

By Stuart Firestein

A profound argument for science that embraces uncertainty and promotes possibility, creativity, and the belief that we can shape, if not determine, our future

The search for certainty is embedded deep in the mythos of science. Science is expected to provide definitive answers based on immutable and universal laws. It seeks to answer the question: If we do this, what must necessarily follow?

In It Could Be Otherwise, however, biologist Stuart Firestein rejects this idea; science isn't about discerning what must be, but what is possible. The classic view of science, Firestein argues, reduces the world to bland predictability and us to mere automatons. Firestein's vision is its opposite: Modern discoveries of deep uncertainty, even unknowability, in evolution, complexity, and physics show that our actions are not strictly governed--and that science is an agent of our freedom.

In our contemporary age, suspicion of science and its certainties is deep. It Could Be Otherwise argues that science isn't about deciphering what the universe has already determined--instead, science offers possibilities. It invites us not to be prisoners of destiny, but helmsmen of our own fates.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1541606736
• ISBN13: 9781541606739
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 272 Pages