I would like to say THANK YOU to whoever chose to give us Surely You are Joking to read over winter break.  It was a perfect selection.  Feynman’s joy in teaching (and life) was inspirational.

You asked us to discuss his writing about research in particular.  The obvious chapter on research was Cargo Cult Science, which was adapted from Feynman’s commencement address at Caltech in 1974.  In it, he spoke of the need for scientific integrity in research and why it is so important to be utterly honest in reporting even data that questions a researcher’s conclusions.

Law and Paralegal Studies students are not required to do research in labs (ala the physics and psychology experiments that Feynman describes) but we do require them to do many hours of research in law libraries.  One of the most important concepts that we  constantly reinforce is that you never look only for the law that supports your case but also for the law your opponent will likely cite.  We teach our students to anticipate the research that will weaken their conclusions, similar to Feynman’s insistence on publishing all research findings “not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another”.

Until I read “Surely”, I only knew of Feynman in relation to his testimony to the Rogers Commission about the cause of the Challenger explosion in 1986.  There is a famous photo of Feynman  freezing an o-ring in a glass of ice water.  My friend had it made into a t-shirt back in the day…