OBSERVATION 



for specific things which his training has taught him are 

 significant, but in research he often has to rely on his own 

 discrimination, guided only by his general scientific knowledge, 

 judgment and perhaps an hypothesis which he entertains. As 

 Alan Gregg, the Director of Medical Sciences for the Rockefeller 

 Foundation has said : 



" Most of the knowledge and much of the genius of the 

 research worker lie behind his selection of what is worth observ- 

 ing. It is a crucial choice, often determining the success or failure 

 of months of work, often differentiating the brilliant discoverer 

 from the . . . plodder."*^ 



When Faraday was asked to watch an experiment, it is said 

 that he would always 2isk what it was he had to look for but 

 that he was still able to watch for other things. He was following 

 the principle enunciated in the quotation from George in the 

 preceding section, that preferably each detail should be looked 

 for. However, this is of little help in making original observa- 

 tions. Claude Bernard considered that one should observe an 

 experiment with an open mind for fear that if we look only 

 for one feature expected in view of a preconceived idea, we will 

 miss other things. This, he said, is one of the greatest stumbling 

 blocks of the experimental method, because, by failing to note 

 what has not been foreseen, a misleading observation may be 

 made. " Put off your imagination," he said, " as you take off 

 your overcoat when you enter the laboratory." Writing of 

 Charles Darwin, his son tells us that : 



" He wished to learn as much as possible from an experiment 

 so he did not confine himself to observing the single point 

 to which the experiment was directed, and his power of seeing 

 a number of things was wonderful. . . . There was one quality of 

 mind which seemed to be of special and extreme advantage in 

 leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting 

 exceptions pass unnoticed."^' 



If, when we are experimenting, we confine our attention to 

 only those things we expect to see, we shall probably miss the 

 unexpected occurrences and these, even though they may at 

 first be disturbing and troublesome, are the most likely to point 

 the way to important unsuspected facts. It has been said that 

 it is the exceptional phenomenon which is likely to lead to the 



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