GUIDE TO SCIENCE
Stauffer, Robert C.
Guide to Science SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE, by James B. Conant. Yale University Press. 353 pp. $4. Reviewed by Robert C. Stauffer UNDERSTANDING the ways in which scientists work and think is more...
...Again he invites us to study the tactics and strategy by which scientific discoveries are made...
...Conant's discussion of tactics and strategy introduces his view that there is no single universal "scientific method...
...Fortunately the History of Science provides study material of problems as familiar as the action of a common pump or the souring of milk...
...Here, in our regard for national defense we must balance military security in the narrow sense against the requirements essential to keeping science alive...
...He reminds us that only by continual new discoveries is science kept alive...
...Conant was chairman of the National Defense Research Committee in charge of the atomic bomb project during the war...
...II Today we all realize that science has an ever increasing influence on our lives...
...Dogmatism of any sort is poisonous to the life of science: "The antithesis between science and secrecy is written in large letters in the record of history...
...On Understanding Science was the subject of an earlier book which James B. Conant has now revised and enlarged under the new title of Science and Common Sense...
...he has an outstanding reputation as a research chemist, and his leadership in American education extends far beyond his position as president of Harvard...
...it is an active process of fitting observations and experimental findings into patterns of general ideas which are in turn fruitful in suggesting further observations and experiments...
...Public health, industrial technology, and national defense alike depend upon the continual flow of new scientific information for any steady improvement...
...Reviewed by Robert C. Stauffer UNDERSTANDING the ways in which scientists work and think is more important for our understanding of science than knowledge of the technical abstractions by which current progress is verbalized...
...The new experiments serve to check the general pattern of theory as well as to extend its scope...
...Conant warns us, however, that significant advances in science are not guaranteed by any predetermined research program...
...He shows that science is not merely a pile of knowledge...
...Despite the suggestions of some vulgarizers of science, the superstitions of magic or man-made miracles are as foreign to the scientific point of view as to the common sense of the everyday world...
...But what is the relation between science and common sense...
...No interpreter of science could have a better background of experience...
...Unfortunately for the layman's understanding, much of the advancing front of today's science is far removed from common experience...
...Common sense is concerned with immediate practical aims, while science is concerned with general ideas...
...These problems concern us all...
...Planned research must be supplemented by the work of the uncommitted investigator, free to gamble on the hope that his personal inspiration will lead to fruitful general scientific ideas and unexpected observations...
...To show us the varieties of successful attacks on different areas of science, he presents a series of "case studies" in which he analyzes the problems and the steps involved in their solution...
...If the cases were to be chosen from esoteric research on subatomic particles or on the structure of chlorophyll, most of us would be confused by unfamiliar terms and abstract answers obtained with complex instruments...
...Whether the scientist be working alone, or as a member of a research team, he must be given all possible freedom for the exchange of all ideas which may stimulate...
...The air of freedom is essential to all healthy scientific work...
...Although some advances can be planned, much fundamental discovery is achieved in unpredictable ways...
...There is no royal road to science, but if Science and Common Sense is read with care, it supplies an admirable guide...
...By taking from the History of Science cases which deal with the more familiar kinds of experience, Conant illustrates the work of scientists in fields ranging from physics through experimental biology to historical geology...
...The basic steps by which man approaches mastery of the abstract world of science are like the steps by which man has adapted to practical life...
...Clearly here our universities can still outdo our billion dollar government programs with their political needs for practical results...
...Understanding is essential to wise choice of policy, and for better understanding of the nature of the scientists' work, I heartily recommend Science and Common Sense...
Vol. 15 • August 1951 • No. 8
