SCIENCE 5 



tists can have no opinions about morals? Is it right for a scientist to seek 

 knowledge for its own sake, feeling no obligation to point out the pos- 

 sible values of his findings? Should a new discovery about some aspect 

 of cell division be considered exciting for its own sake and not because 

 of its possible relationship to cancer? In contrast, is it possible for a 

 scientist to feel no guilt when the results of his work are used for the 

 purposes of destruction? The scientist is in a difficult position philosophi- 

 cally, because it is both necessary and impossible to separate the scientist 

 as a scientist from the scientist as a human being. Since each must work 

 out his own answers to these weighty problems, it is not surprising that 

 there is no archetype of all scientists. 



What are the methods of science? 



Science is unique among the fields of intellectual activity in that 

 acquisitions of knowledge occur only through objective observation. 

 Philosophy, literature, art, all these are dependent upon the creative 

 ability of the philosophers, wnriters, and artists, and they may or may 

 not have a direct relationship to reality. Science also depends on creative 

 mental talent, because observations can be useful only if they become 

 part of generalizations that explain, but all of science is directly related 

 to the real world and is dependent on this real world for its subject 

 matter. As Santayana says, "Science contains all trustworthy knowledge." 

 Scientific information may be discussed, interpreted, reorganized, or 

 rejected, but in the final analysis, the only source of new information is 

 observation. 



Observation is the act (or the result) of careful, attentive watching 

 of a natural event. Any of the senses might be used in observation, even 

 though we commonly think of it as a result of vision. Many observa- 

 tions have been made with the unaided senses, but now scientific obser- 

 vation more commonly requires the assistance of instruments of various 

 kinds. Magnification makes possible the observation of things too small 

 to be seen by the eye alone. Electrical instruments allow us to observe 

 events for which there are no senses. One of the principal aims of this 

 book is to point out some of the methods by which we observe. 



Early biology was scientific, just as modern biology is. The classical 

 biologists observed and then formed explanations for their observations. 

 Even today some aspects of biology are best observed in their natural 

 state, with a minimum of interference from the observers. One pattern 



