X FOREWORD 



Dr. Morison endeavors to face the situation squarely. He 

 explains what science is and what it is not. He examines 

 some difficult questions as to the validity of scientific knowl- 

 edge and its relation to other kinds of knowledge. He does 

 not, Hke so many other scientists, ignore the humanities and 

 the social sciences, for he understands full well their impor- 

 tance to education and to civiUzation. He seeks ever to give 

 a sense of what it is like to be a scientist and to think scien- 

 tifically. 



Born in 1906, Dr. Morison attended Phillips Exeter 

 Academy and Harvard University. He received his A.B. de- 

 gree at the latter in 1930 and his M.D. at Harvard Medical 

 School five years later. After serving as a resident physician 

 at the CoUis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital in Boston, 

 he taught anatomy and physiology at the Harvard Medical 

 School for a decade before joining The Rockefeller Founda- 

 tion. There he has risen to be Director of the program in 

 Medical and Natural Sciences — a post of key importance 

 that has brought him into close contact with scientists of 

 every land, ranging from Nobel Prize winners to young 

 students from the new countries of Asia and Africa. 



Thus Dr. Morison is especially fitted to write about what 

 it means and what it takes to be a scientist. More than most 

 of his colleagues in the scientific world, he has a sense of 

 the past and of the future as well as of the present. Like 

 the best of them, he has a real humility, a respect for facts, 

 and a faith in reason combined with a healthy skepticism. 

 I would even hazard the guess that a young man or woman 

 who is thrilled and captivated by this volume has a scientific 

 type of mind and will make a good scientist. 



Charles W. Cole 

 Santiago, Chile 

 April, 1963 



