LIFE AND EXPERIMENT 



has given a great impetus to biology, but which nevertheless 

 does not satisfy our demand for exactness and completeness, 

 should most certainly be repeated on a more extensive 

 scale. 



Even to-day exactness is often not carried as far as we 

 should demand. Above I gave examples of incompletely 

 controlled experimental work. Where living cells are 

 treated statistically, the larger the number used, the more 

 valuable are the conclusions drawn. Few workers would 

 care to publish results like some of Morgan's who in eleven 

 experiments had i, lo, 4, 8, 8, 3, 3, i, 2, 2, 4 eggs, and in 

 other experiments had no eggs, yet spoke of percentage of 

 development.^ 



Certainly, modern technique offers its advantageous 

 apparatus also to biology for increasing exactness in 

 observation and experiment. These modern achievements 

 on the other hand have served in devaluating morphological 

 knowledge, and impressed by technical progress many an 

 investigator regards experimentation as a virtue in itself, 

 a reward of its own. 



Experiment for experiment's sake, ever a dangerous 

 philosophy, becomes exceedingly baneful for biology. 

 True, through It valuable knowledge may be gained for 

 mapping out unknown terrain. On the other hand, by it 

 the accumulation of data may become bewildering because 

 it relates to topographical details impossible of reduction 

 on a scale of value for other explorers. Moreover, such 

 refined plotting of points often has no relation to the whole 

 field — indeed, often the field as such is lost sight of and only 

 unrelated minutiae remain. The main purpose of an 

 experiment in biology should be the explanation of the 

 naturally occurring phenomena. Here we encounter a 

 difficulty not met with in physical science. 



^ Morgan, 190^. 



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