316 ORGANIZED SCIENCE 



the entire possibility of evolution derives from the rare occurrence 

 of abrupt mutations at the individual level. In science, too, the bal- 

 ance of stability and mutability is heavily weighted toward stability 

 by the intellectual inertia of the vast majority of men. The forceful- 

 ness and spontaneity of individual genius is then more than counter- 

 poised by the steady drag of organized science, the resistance of the 

 great mass of scientifically "solid citizens." Their typical immediate 

 response to fundamental novelty is accurately and charmingly re- 

 ported by Arrhenius. 



I came to my professor, Cleve, whom I admire very much, and I said, 

 "I have a new theory of electrical conductivity as a cause of chemical 

 reactions." He said, "That is very interesting," and then he said, 

 "Good-bve." 



We point to the Cleves, or the diehard opponents of Lavoisier, and 

 deplore the stubborn inflexibility of uninspired opinion. The reproba- 

 tion of scientific conservatism is, howe\^er, an artifact of the way we 

 write the history of science. We make heroes of the insurgent cham- 

 pions of radical ideas whose insurgency was successful ( e.g., Arrhen- 

 ius and Lavoisier), and make knaves or fools of the conservative 

 resisters of those innovations {e.g., Cleve and Priestley). But rarely 

 if ever do we mention the bold insurgents who were wrong, and 

 failed— they did not "make history." We have then as seldom occa- 

 sion to celebrate the staunch resistance of their opponents, who 

 maintained the predominance of conservatism over radicalism essen- 

 tial for an orderly evolution of science. Given a proper balance of 

 these two factors, natural selection generally produces adoption of 

 the correct {i.e., heuristically superior) ideas. However, on some 

 occasions (all the more conspicuous for their comparative rarity) 

 the mechanism has failed, usually for one or both of two reasons. 



Defective personal commitment. Natural selection through the 

 struggle of competing ideas will fail if the champions of new ideas 

 fail to make a case for their acceptance. On rare occasions this failure 

 seems to rise from an excess of personal commitment. Led by meta- 

 physical speculations to which he was wholly committed, J. R. Mayer 

 arrived at the conception of a conserv^ation of energy. But, in thrall 

 to his commitment (and emotionally somewhat unstable), Mayer 

 was at first quite unable to separate his achievement from its inspira- 



