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Science in New Zealand Supplement to Salient, Vol. 28, No. 7. 1965.

A Many Splendoured Thing

page 3

A Many Splendoured Thing

During a recent meeting of the Wellington branch of the Royal Society some hard words were said about the failure of New Zealand Universities to make their science students aware of the country's industrial problems and thus assist the national economy. Apart from this agelong controversy centred around pure versus applied research, the above meeting and several others in the past have revealed so many differences of opinion on fundamental aspects of science amongst veteran professionals that a discussion on some of these aspects may be of benefit to a science student.

The Scientific Method

According to a classic description of the scientific method due to Karl Pearson this method is marked by careful and accurate classification of facts and observations of their correlation and sequence. In many instances — especially in Government sponsored research — emphasis is laid on meticulous planning of the work. Estimates of expenditure are often demanded before a new project is approved. On the other hand some scientists — and not only academic dons — recommend a philosophical approach. One of the favourite formulae runs as follows: A problem is recognised and a purpose stated. A literature search is carried out to collect pertinent information. A working hypothesis is formed. Deductions from the hypothesis are drawn. The deductions are tested by experiments.

These are certainly sound principles but the tortuous and fumbling way by which scientists have often arrived at seemingly obvious conclusions suggests that science is not as simple as that. The story of the rare gases may illustrate the point. Towards the end of the 18th century Cavendish reported that a residual constituent of air "stood its ground" against all attempts to combine it with oxygen. A century later an American chemist. Hillebrand, had a mixture of argon and helium in his hands. Adequate means of their detection were at his disposal, yet he failed to recognise these gases as new elements. Then during some 60 years after the discovery of these and other rare gases by Rayleigh and Ramsay they were regarded as chemically inert and their inertness attributed to the completed octet of outer shell electrons became one of the main features of the modern theory of atomic structure.

However, a few years ago it was found that at least some of them do combine with other elements and that the formation of such compounds is remarkably easy. What were the reasons for the delay in discovering rare gases and assessing correctly their chemical nature? Did the scientists concerned not follow the principles outlined above? If they did, maybe there was lack of intuition, creative imagination, critical ability or drive; or maybe too much reliance was placed on theory and too little on experiment. This list of aids to the scientific method is by no means exhaustive; in fact, each instance of breaking a new ground may require some special approach. One can almost risk the view that if there is such a thing as a revelational scientific method no one has yet been able to reveal it

Pure Versus Applied Science

The "confrontation" of pure and applied research coincided with the triumphant entry of science into various industries in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was probably due in the first place to the snobbery of some scholars who watched the engagement of science in profit making pursuits with disdain. This attitude is now rare but the argument still crops up in a modified form and is not readily resolved. The claim that scientific endeavour should be directed towards alleviation of want and raising of living standards cannot be lightly dismissed. But neither can one disregard the appeal against purely utilitarian tendencies like one contained in a recent address delivered by the President of the Royal Society of N.Z. to science graduates of Victoria University. In this address Dr. C. A. Fleming asserts that science fostered for its own sake and not for profit is part of the glory of man akin to the creative art of sculptor, poet and musician. Even a convinced utilitarian could hardly fail to respect this attitude.

However, the recent history of scientific discoveries has deprived the above arguments of much of their significance. Nowadays it is hardly a witticism to say that the only difference between pure and applied research is a matter of some twenty years. It was just before the second World War that Rutherford described his atom splitting experiments as a scientific pastime with no practical application. Despite differences in outlook and purpose, theory and practice, discoverer and inventor are inextricably bound together and interdependent. Only the mode of this interdependence may change. Before 1850 one could say that the steam engine did more for science than science did for the steam engine. Now it is the otherway round.

Two Concepts Of Science

No attempt will be made here to add another long winded definition of science to the many already in existence. Two opposing concepts of science will be discussed instead, without subscribing to either of them unconditionally. The first concept which may be described as static, regards science rather as a means of correlating facts than of accumulating new facts and knowledge. The ultimate aim of science so conceived is to obtain a harmonious and coherent system which would produce a key to the explanation of the universe. Once this is achieved there would be little need for maintaining laboratories, for experimentation, in other words for further scientific activity. This brings to mind Laplace's imaginary mathematician who succeeded in integrating the movements of atoms at a given time. By partial differentiation of the mathematical function thus obtained he could interpret most phenomena without any experimental work whatsoever.

The opponents of the static concept of science maintain that discontinuation of scientific activities would amount to the disappearance of science. The knowledge contained in textbooks would become fossilised. The human mind deprived of the spirit of inquiry would accept all statements on trust. Science would change into a set of dogmas.

According to the other, the dynamic concept of science, no problems except some very simple ones are ever solved definitely. The real importance of research lies in its leading towards further research. Experimental findings are valuable if they generate new experiments. This view of science as a self perpetuating activity is subscribed to consciously or subconsciously by a number of dedicated research workers; it would probably hold little appeal for an outsider. The layman, the politician and the taxpayer may be inclined to regard the urge to work in order to create more work as a kind of madness. This may explain the reluctance of some renowned scientists to heed the exhortations of well meaning politicians and to inform the public what they hope to achieve by their labours. They are probably too selfconscious to point out that the by-product of their madness is much of our present-day civilisation

The conflicting concepts of science, the tangle between pure and applied research, the absence of a mandatory scientific method may appear confusing to a science student who is looking for guidance. Moreover, the trend of modern science is not likely to increase his confidence. Not only have there been some fundamental scientific conceptions thrown overboard recently but the proliferation of these changes is bewildering. At the beginning of this century an atom was still an indivisible particle of matter. Now the number of diverse particles originating from an atom exceeds one hundred. Or to quote a more homely example: Not many years ago butter contained according to textbooks a dozen or so fatty acids all with straight chains and even carbon numbers. At present there are listed over 60 fatty-acid constituents of butter with all sorts of configurations. In either case the meaning of this diversity is obscure. In addition to these and numerous other developments there is at least one which touches on the very essence of science. It is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle — now widely accepted as one of the bases of modern physics — according to which either the velocity or the position of a particle but not both can be determined. This amounts to an admission that there are certain fundamental physical problems which no experiment is ever likely to resolve.

All these sceptical remarks are not meant to infer that science is threatened by anarchy so noticeable in some manifestations of contemporary art. The theory of relativity is not likely to displace Newton's laws of gravitation; the uncertainty principle has no significance outside the realm of minute particles such as electrons. One of the most important effects arising from the unexpected turn taken by science somewhere about 1900 is the drastic reduction of dogmas and superstititions. As a result the scientist has some reason to be proud that in a world in which restrictions imposed by various agencies are steadily mounting, he has achieved in the spiritual sphere of his profession a greater degree of freedom than ever before.