What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

That's this year's Question of the Year from Edge.org. 120 distinguished scientists answered it.

From a sampling of the answers, I believe that a lot of scientists aren't all that honest or as intelligent as they get credit for. Some are cagy, limiting their answers to things that only they and their fellow specialists know or care about, retreating to the basics of ontology or the scientific method, or referring to terms that they know most readers will be able to interpret, such as "the continuity hypothesis." Some are disingenuously paradoxical, slyly saying things like "I belief in believing, even though I'm an atheist." Some are philosophical, admitting that very much of what we experience, or seem to, cannot be proven or disproven, or turning the question around to ask, "What is proof?"

Many are, nevertheless, quite honest and straightforward, such as Leo Chalupa who says, "(i) The human brain is the most complex entity in the known universe; ii) With this marvelous product of evolution we will be successful in eventually discovering all that there is to discover about the physical world, provided of course, that some catastrophic event doesn't terminate our species; and (iii) Science provides the best means to attain this ultimate goal." If he didn't believe those things, he wouldn't be much of a scientist.

One thing that is striking about most of the answers is that they underly the whole enterprise of what these people have devoted their lives to. They might as well say, "I believe, but cannot prove, that we can't know anything." For instance, one physicist says he doesn't believe that time really exists.

Ultimately, I think the question itself is a kind of trap. It's not scientific. It's a challenge to acknowledge the limits of science, which failure to do would be insane.