The Promotion of Medical Research
1920; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 105; Issue: 2634 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/105221a0
ISSN1476-4687
Tópico(s)Health and Medical Research Impacts
ResumoIT is evident from the correspondence evoked by the leading article in NATURE of February 19 that many scientific workers are keenly interested in the subject of the organisation of scientific research and watch with some apprehension the efforts made to bring original investigators within an official system. Francis Bacon supposed that all scientific investigation must proceed from the general to the particular according to a prescribed set of rules, and gave in his “New Atlantis” “a modell or description of a college, instituted for the interpreting of Nature, and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of man.” As every student of the history of science knows, Bacon's method, and all other assumedly infallible systems for creating knowledge, fail to furnish a formula for scientific discovery. New truths present themselves in unexpected places, and the seeker after them has to follow whatever paths seem to be the most promising. Knowing that this is so, and cherishing the freedom of action of true explorers, men of science view with suspicion any schemes for systematising research which may deprive them of their birthright. They do not, however, form a single corporate body concerned solely with the promotion of discovery by the encouragement of genius; wherefore they are rarely considered when research systems are planned by the Bacons of our day.
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