Scientists Polled on Single Most Important Science Lesson

Spiked magazine polled over 250 scientists with the question, "If you could teach the world just one thing about science, what would it be?" The survey was conducted to mark the 2005 World Year of Physics, which celebrates Einstein's "miraculous year" in 1905 in which he developed the theory of special relativity. The answers covered many areas of science, only a few actually related to Einstein's theories. "The scientific principle that I wish everyone understood," said Richard Dawkins (pictured right), from the University of Oxford, "is Darwinian natural selection, and its enormous explanatory power, as the only known explanation of 'design'." Gerald Jay Sussman of MIT, responded with a quote from Galileo, "In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." The originator of the survey, Alom Shaha, has made four films containing interviews with the scientists as they explain their "most important lesson."