Where it comes from
In 1966 Feynman spoke at the annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association in New York. The talk was published three years later as “What Is Science?” in The Physics Teacher (volume 7, issue 6, pages 313–320). We read the passage in a reprint of the full text, which carries the original publication note; the journal’s own page confirms the title, issue and pages.
What he meant
The line follows his remarks on what he calls “pseudoscientific imitation”. The result of it, he says, is to produce experts, “which many of you are”. Then he turns to his audience: “you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
What comes next is the key: “When someone says, ‘Science teaches such and such,’ he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it.” If someone tells you science has shown something, he says, ask: “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?”
Our take
Real. But it’s often quoted as if Feynman were saying experts are worthless. He wasn’t. The line is about where authority comes from: not from a title, but from the evidence and how it was collected. An expert who can show you how they know is doing science. A claim that rests only on someone’s standing isn’t, whoever makes it.
It’s a teacher’s quote, too. He was telling people who stand in front of children every day that they’re allowed to ask “how do we know?” That’s the question behind every page on this site.
