chapter 6 



DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF THE 

 "TEMPORARY FROG" 



At this point in the story, the theme changes suddenly. We are now 

 to deal with the lives of the adult frogs. Before I pass on to the details, 

 I feel that I must refer to a dilemma that confronts many scientific 

 authors. Failure to recognize its existence can have serious effects on 

 the understanding that others may have of what it is that the author is 

 trying to convey. 



The duty of a scientific author is not only to present the facts. He 

 must also put forward hypotheses that have arisen in his mind, so that 

 he and others can discuss and consider whether the hypotheses are 

 reasonably consistent with the facts. He may also feel it his task to 

 speculate — that is to extrapolate from the facts, if by this means he can 

 advance his subject by stimulating thought. But he must do all he can 

 to distinguish between fact and hypothesis, and this is where the 

 difficulty arises. There seems to be a tendency on the part of readers 

 to rivet fact to hypothesis more firmly than the author would wish. 

 It is a common thing for later facts to show that a hypothesis is wrong. 

 This is not a disaster, although it may be disappointing, for this process 

 of acceptance and rejection is normal to science. If, however, the 

 facts have been so firmly riveted to the hypothesis that both are 

 rejected together, much harm can result, for, if the facts are correct, 

 any later hypothesis must be consistent with them, as well as with the 

 new facts. In a very different but also very comphcated field, Biggs 

 and Macfarlane (195 1) have discussed this point, and have shown that 

 this process of riveting fact to hypothesis, not by the author but by 

 others, has to their knowledge retarded advances by many years. They 

 suggest that authors should not end their papers with a hypothesis, but 

 should put it at the beginning. I have adopted a literary device with 

 the same object. In scientific conversation and discussions, speakers 

 alternate between the first person and the third, dropping naturally 

 into the first when they are putting forward their own ideas and do 

 not wish to claim that they are proved. An excessive use of the third 

 person may give an impression of certainty far from the author's 



70 



