It Could Be Otherwise
Science in the Age of Uncertainty
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It Could Be Otherwise
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Narrated by:
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Stuart Firestein
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By:
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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. In It Could Be Otherwise, however, neuroscientist Stuart Firestein challenges this idea, extending the reach of science beyond merely discerning what must be to encompassing what may yet be possible.
The classic view of science, Firestein argues, reduces the world to bland predictability and us to our fates. Instead, modern discoveries of deep uncertainty, even unknowability, in evolution, complexity, physics, and all sciences, show that our actions are not strictly governed—and that science is an agent of freedom.
In our contemporary age, suspicion of science and its certainties runs 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 navigators of our own futures.
©2026 Stuart Firestein (P)2026 Blackstone PublishingCritic reviews
“This wise book challenges everything we take for granted about thinking scientifically.”
(Annie Duke, bestselling author of Thinking in Bets)“This exploration of uncertainty will resonate with readers interested in how science actually functions rather than what it definitively proves.”
(Library Journal (starred review))“It Could Be Otherwise is, at its core, an act of reframing; uncertainty not as a confession of failure but as the condition of possibility. That reframing is genuinely valuable, and it reaches beyond what either triumphalist or relativist accounts of science can offer.”
(Science)“An eloquent and impassioned defense of the noble pursuit of science, one that’s especially welcome now, in this most uncertain of times.”
“Patient, cumulative, and genuinely clarifying for any reader who has never paused to ask what science actually is, beneath its textbook surface…The reader who wants to understand why scientists find uncertainty energizing rather than defeating will come away with something genuinely useful.”
(American Scientist)“A smart treatise…Making complex philosophical questions accessible, this is a persuasive defense of uncertainty as science’s defining feature and greatest gift.”
(Publishers Weekly)