I am loving the anarchy on Stargazing tonight (BBC2).

A panel of cosmologists, astrophysicists and comedians are demonstrating beautifully that it is OK to say we don’t know or that there may be multiple answers.

As someone often involved in qualitative research, the phrase ‘physics envy’ has come up on more than one occasion and yet even with their calculations and scientific measurement the presenters are still talking openly about best guesses. This is not a criticism, far from it, I am delighted.

I often work with people who expend so much energy looking for certainty only to be constantly disappointed that it never materialises. Of course uncertainty causes anxiety but as I was once told …

 Confusion is your learning edge

 

It would be great to be able to be more mindful of our search for certainty, which is ultimately about a drive for control, and accept that through not knowing comes learning.

Stargazing summed this up beautifully with a great conundrum – it is as hard to perceive of a finite universe, as it is an infinite universe.

It was also good to hear lots of talk of beauty from scientists…