10 FREDM. UBER 



In a narrower sense, many potentially meaningful questions may 

 be meaningless at a given time or to a particular worker because 

 methods or equipment might not exist with which he could con- 

 ceivably perform the necessary "operations." An example: Are 

 there mountains on the other side of the moon? 



A recent discussion of what constitutes meaningful questions with 

 respect to experimental science has been given by Churchman (5), 

 who elaborates and extends the concept outlined by Bridgman. 



4. Appraise Relative Importance of Problems 



Individuals are constantly appraising the relative values of the 

 several experimental sciences and of the more limited fields of in- 

 vestigation within specific branches of research activity. It is only 

 natural that serious consideration be given to the possible significance 

 of a proposed research program and its importance as related to the 

 broader aspects of science and other human endeavor. The task is not 

 an easy one. If history has taught any lesson clearly concerning the 

 ultimate value of research to society, it is the fact that such values are 

 unpredictable in advance. This results in part from the unexpected 

 by-products of experimental studies but in large measure from the 

 autocatalytic nature of cumulative scientific knowledge. Hence, a 

 conscious steering of basic research by society would seem to con- 

 stitute an unwise procedure, if not an unconscious boomerang. Even 

 scientists, far from claiming omniscience either as individuals or as a 

 group, are not qualified to render a priori decisions regarding the 

 eventual value or meaning to society of scientific questions. 



Even though society cannot render a verdict in advance as to the 

 ultimate significance of scientific questions, it can often appraise the 

 experimental results. For example, an experiment can be relatively 

 fruitless to society if it constitutes merely a repetition of an earlier 

 published finding or if it is not made available to the public at all, as 

 is true of much commercial research, thus leading to further duplica- 

 tion of effort. Where results are not readily comparable to related 

 investigations and where experiments are not carried to satisfactory 

 and unambiguous conclusions, they may likewise possess little mean- 

 ing to others. The basic reason for the abundance of meaningless 

 experiments is simply the failure of numerous experiments to supply 

 an unequivocal answer to the question. Results that are presumably 

 satisfying to the investigator himself, at least in some degree, are 

 often unconvincing to scientists generally. 



