STRATEGY 



successively as a branch of science or a subject becomes more 

 advanced. First comes the observational type of research carried 

 out by naturalists in the field or by scientists with similar mental 

 attributes in the laboratory. Gradually the crude phenomena and 

 materials become refined to more precise but more restricted 

 laboratory procedures, and these ultimately are reduced to exact 

 physical and chemical processes. It is almost a practical impossi- 

 bility for anyone to have a specialist knowledge of more than a 

 limited field at one level. The natural historian type, who is 

 no less useful than his colleagues, owes most of his success to 

 his powers of observation and natural wit and often lacks the 

 depth of basic scientific knowledge necessary to develop his 

 findings to the full. On the other hand, the specialist in a basic 

 science may be too far removed, mentally and physically, from 

 phenomena occurring in nature to be the equal of the natural 

 historian type in starting new lines of work. 



The transfer method in research 



All scientific advances rest on a base of previous knowledge. 

 The discoverers are the people who supply the keystone to 

 another arch in the building and reveal to the world the com- 

 pleted structure built mainly by others. In this section, however, 

 I am referring not so much to the background of knowledge 

 on which one tries to build but rather to the adaptation of a 

 piece of new knowledge to another set of circumstances. 



Sometimes the central idea on which an investigation hinges 

 is provided by the appHcation or transfer of a new principle 

 or technique which has been discovered in another field. The 

 method of making advances in this way will be referred to as 

 the "transfer" method in research. This is probably the most 

 fruitful and the easiest method in research, and the one most 

 employed in appHed research. It is, however, not to be in any 

 way despised. Scientific advances are so difficult to achieve that 

 every useful stratagem must be used. Some of these contributions 

 might be more correctly called developments rather than dis- 

 coveries since no new principles and little new knowledge may be 

 brought to light. However, usually in attempting to apply the 



129 



