THE ART OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 



Although, as with other tastes, people may be endowed with 

 the capacity for scientific taste to varying degrees, it may also be 

 cultivated by training oneself in the appreciation of science, as, 

 for example, in reading about how discoveries have been made. 

 As with other tastes, taste in science will only be found in people 

 with a genuine love of science. Our taste derives from the 

 summation of all that we have learnt from others, experienced 

 and thought. 



Some scientists may have difficulty in comprehending such an 

 abstract concept as taste, and some may find it unacceptable, 

 because all the scientist's training is toward making him eliminate 

 subjective influences from his work. No one would dispute the 

 policy of keeping the subjective element out of experimentation, 

 observation and technical procedures to the greatest possible 

 extent. How far such a pohcy can effectively be carried out in a 

 scientist's thinking is more open to question. Most people do not 

 realise how often opinions that are supposed to be based on reason 

 are in fact but rationalisations of prejudice or subjective motives. 

 There is a very considerable part of scientific thinking where 

 there is not enough sound knowledge to allow of effective 

 reasoning and here the judgment will inevitably be largely 

 influenced by taste. In research we continually have to take action 

 on issues about which there is very little direct evidence. There- 

 fore, rather than delude ourselves, I think it is wise to face the 

 fact of subjective judgment and accept the concept of scientific 

 taste, which seems a useful one. But by accepting the idea, I do 

 not mean to suggest that we should adopt taste as a guide in 

 cases where there is enough evidence on which to base an 

 objectively reasoned judgment. The phrase, "scientific taste", 

 must not be allowed to blind us to the risks which are associated 

 with all subjective thinking. 



SUMMARY 



Intuition is used here to mean a clarifying idea that springs 

 suddenly into the mind. It by no means always proves to be 

 correct. 



The conditions most conducive to intuitions are as follows : 

 (a) The mind must first be prepared by prolonged conscious 

 puzzling over the problem, (b) Competing interests or worries are 



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