MODES OF RESEARCH IN 

 GENETICS 



CHAPTER I 



A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF CURRENT MODES 

 OF RESEARCH IN GENETICS 1 



To any one interested in the philosophical bases 

 and methods of science there is nothing which is 

 regarded as sacrosanct merely because traditional. 

 In theory, of course, such a condition of affairs 

 obtains in all scientific work, and the implied 

 state of mind is the ordinary one of all scientific 

 workers. But while theoretically science is free 

 of all trammels of tradition, practically the great 

 bulk of scientific work is, in respect of its methods, 

 most closely bound by tradition. Orthodoxy 

 does not more firmly rule in the vestry than in 

 the laboratory, in actual fact. Yet every one will 

 agree that a real and permanent step in advance 

 in science is only taken when some one looks at 

 an old problem and at common facts from a naive 

 point of view, and applies to them unorthodox 



1 The substance of this paper was read before a club in Boston on 

 May 17, 1914. It has since been modified in certain minor par- 

 ticulars. 



B 1 



