The Missing Person in Science Inquiry Starts with “I”
While art and science are at times seen as diametric opposites, there are also ways in which art can inform the scientific process.
Published May 8, 2006
By Cecily Cannan Selby
Academy Contributor
Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles.
– James Watson (1968)
A work of art reflects the perceptions of its creator, while a work of science reflects the characteristics of nature. A work of art is a personal expression of the artist, while a work of science must be a shared expression among scientists. An artist creates an original work and does not want another artist to reproduce it. A scientist gets validation when other scientists reproduce her results. These are useful ways to distinguish between art and science.
But the whole truth must include how art and science can be partners. We recognize this most dramatically when we find beauty in science’s products. Less well recognized is that art can also be a part of science’s processes. [17] Richard Buckminster Fuller described this pithily: “When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
I believe that the public discourse about science has been missing a vital message that, if understood and promoted, could profoundly improve student, adult, and societal engagement with science: Aesthetic and humanistic, as well as scientific, perspectives can legitimately influence the choices made in a scientific inquiry.
Public Perception of Science
Unfortunately, public perceptions of science too often thwart this message. Physicist and historian Gerald Holton has explained that misperceptions of science can arise because the scientist’s “private process of creation” is largely shielded from public view. Only the “public process of validation” is reported in professional journals and monographs. What scientists actually do, their “nascent moment of discovery” and personal scientific activity—what Holton calls “private science”—are not. Francois Jacob, the physiologist and Nobel laureate, captured this difference when he compared his “night” science of private scientific activity to the “day” science of formal public reporting.
The writings of scientists, philosophers, and historians are our partners in the examination of “private” science—what scientists say they do, and how and why they do it. They illuminate how personal and cultural perspectives can influence, and add value to, scientific investigations. [17]
The Process and the Person
The cutting edge of science is not about the completely unknown. It is found where we understand just enough to ask the right question or build the right instrument. [7]
– David Goodstein
Scientists say that their inquiry starts with a question, and their first task is to design an inquiry that makes it soluble. Questioning, observing, experimenting, and hypothesis testing are commonly used to find solutions. None of these processes, however, is unique to science. If, as Albert Einstein wrote, “the whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking,” what refinement is unique to science? The answer is scientific evidence. The refinement that early scientists brought to human problem solving is the evidence to which scientists pay attention.
Evidence. In school, most of us learned that scientific evidence must be verifiable. The 20th-century British philosopher Karl Popper argued that falsifiability is a more appropriate criterion, since there is always the possibility that “some new fact or discovery will come along that does not verify the proposition.” To be scientific, an observation or proposition must be open to disproof.
If scientific evidence must be falsifiable by others, then the processes of a scientist’s inquiry must be transparent to others. This is where “public science” demonstrates its value. If everyone is to agree on scientific evidence, its identification must be independent of everyone’s personal characteristics. Scientific evidence must be testable and relevant to the problem under study. The requirement of falsifiability opens the processes of scientific inquiry to public scrutiny.
The Role of Theology
Theology or faith cannot be proven wrong. A sculpture, a ballet, or a poem is not falsifiable. Each is subject to likes and dislikes, to disagreements of taste and style, to failed technique. The proponents of creationism say it cannot be proven wrong because it is a matter of faith. But if it is not open to disproof, it cannot be science. One can like or dislike intelligent design. However, one cannot like or dislike the evidence supporting Mendel’s laws of inherited characteristics—or age estimates from the carbon dating of ancient trees or bones—until and unless new evidence arises to falsify these data.
Observing
Popper wrote that “to look for a black hat in a black room, you have to believe that it is there.” His wonderful line reminds us that all scientific inquiry is based on the assumption that explanations of natural phenomena are accessible to human minds and senses. Modern scholars now declare that the idea that science proceeds through collecting observations without prejudice is false.
As a former professor of mine, Philipp Frank, explained, without a theory, a question, and a context we do not even know what to observe. He quoted Auguste Comte, writing in 1858: “Chance observations usually do not lend themselves to any generalization.” Contemporary philosophers agree. [8] In a scientific inquiry, it is the inquirer’s input that makes human sense of the observation.
Experimenting
Experimenting can be described as “a form of thinking as well as a practical expression of thought.” [11] The contributions of those with “genius in their fingertips” are too often neglected. Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg once told me that the high-school subjects most useful to his later work were shop and technical drawing. He could learn the “school” science by himself, but not the skills needed to design and build experiments.
To separate tiny quantities of radium from huge, 20-kg batches of pitchblende, Marie Curie learned that she needed brawn as well as brain to do her work. To attract and retain more students in science, the brawn versus brain dichotomy long separating academic from technical skills needs reevaluation. [16]
In Teaching
I often quote the following, for which I cannot now find the source: “Science is an interrogation of nature, but nature can respond only in the way the question is asked.” Doesn’t this say it all?
Experimental design, technical skill, and a critical spirit are all needed to coax new information and new data out of nature. Nature can only answer questions that are asked or provide observations for experiments designed to reveal them.
Luckily for science, there are astute observers who pay attention when something unexpected appears. Fleming discovered penicillin by noticing that the mold contaminating his culture of Staphylococcus bacteria had left a halo where no bacteria grew. Barbara McClintock discovered wandering genes by noticing “unexpected segregants exhibiting bizarre phenotypes” in her maize seedlings. Margaret Mead wisely emphasized the “position of the experimenter” as the “point of reference from which we define a field of observation.”
In science, “the achievements of one generation represent something won from Nature, which remains as definite gain and definite progress: an experiment properly carried out remains for all time.” [1] Great experiments, like those of Meselson and Stahl are a scientist’s sculpture, symphony, and choreography.
Hypothesis Testing
In business and politics, in architecture and economics, dreaming up hypotheses and figuring out how to test them can be the most fun, and the most creative, part of problem solving. Some years ago, at a Rockefeller University meeting honoring Andrei Sakharov for peace work, I heard Popper say, “When scientists fight, their hypotheses die in their stead.” He recognized scientific hypotheses as scientists’ personal creations and possessions.
Hypotheses are educated guesses about what the answer might be. They can be useful throughout an inquiry and tested in many different ways. Different hypotheses can be posited and tested to address new questions as they arise. If the test validates the guess, the hypothesis becomes a conclusion. If it does not, then the scientist makes the critical decision whether to give up a favorite conviction or go “back to the drawing board.”
During my years in cancer research, while scanning cancer cells with the newly powerful electron microscope, I once saw slices of hexagonally packed particles in cells that my colleague, Charlotte Friend (later president of The New York Academy of Sciences), had given me for technical experiments. This chance observation could not, of course, yield any conclusions until she and I put our prior knowledge and experience together to ask two questions: Are they viruses and, if so, have they any relation to cancer?
Hypothesizing yes answers to these questions, we designed experiments to test them. Finding supporting evidence, we reported that we had discovered “virus-like” particles in some mouse cancer cells. Continuing to study the strain of mice from which the observed cells had come, Friend identified them as mouse leukemic viruses.
Who Does Science and How They Do It
The notion that personal perspectives are embedded in scientific inquiry is not new. In 1934, Albert Einstein wrote: Science as something existing and complete is the most objective thing known to man. But science in the making, as an end to be pursued, is as subjective and psychologically conditioned as any other branch of human endeavor—so much so that the question, “what is the purpose and meaning of science,” receives quite different answers at different times and from different sorts of people.
Human judgment, taste, and style are actively involved throughout a scientific inquiry. Different scientists may sense differently, question differently, and hypothesize differently. Those who love order best will find order, and those intrigued by ambiguity will find it. Michael Polanyi has described “personal knowledge” as the ingredient of scientific inquiry that fuses the personal and objective.
In their autobiographies, scientists tell us that they participate personally, even passionately, in their acts of understanding. In school, we learned that scientists must be objective, but we cannot help notice how our colleagues’ personal characteristics influence their work. Scientific reports reveal again and again that combining the perspectives of different scientists entices more secrets from nature. Should not students be taught early how and why their personal characteristics matter to science—and that science benefits from different people asking and answering questions in their own ways?
What Kind of Science to Do?
His extensive historical studies led Holton to develop categories for the types of science scientists choose to do. (I am extremely grateful to Professor Holton for suggesting that I use this information from his unpublished work.) Some choose to challenge a prevailing scientific model or exemplar, to reach principle-oriented conclusions, or to focus on a synthesis of previously unconnected theories and findings. Some look for areas of basic scientific ignorance in the realm of social or national interest, or want to emphasize the applicability of already known science and engineering to technical and social problems.
Holton also noted how some reject “androcentric” or “western” science and technology and seek alternatives to it. And some are most interested in the potential for wide dissemination, recognition, and reward subsequent to the publication of scientific findings.
Scientists can differ dramatically in how they work. Do they choose to work alone or in groups, in a laboratory, under the ocean, in caves or in spaceships, or at home with a computer? Those choosing fieldwork, whether in the Antarctic or the Amazon, tell of their particular taste for nature and of its emotional and physical, as well as intellectual, challenges. [6]
Choices may be constrained by what a mentor, a professor, or other superior advises. Today, they are increasingly constrained by available resources. In a review of the personnel and productivity of five German chemistry laboratories from 1870 to 1930, the chemist Joseph Fruton discovered a powerful finding about the impact of scientific styles [5]: The scientific productivity of the laboratories led by scientists with broad views of their field, and great interest in encouraging their junior associates, was significantly greater than the output of laboratories with autocratic, dictatorial leaders who treated students as disciples rather than as independent scientists.
Beliefs About Science
Political and economic power influence what science gets done by allocating resources for research and for technological applications. It is important for nonscientists to recognize that not all scientists view science’s potential power the same way.
At a memorable 1978 conference on “The Limits of Scientific Inquiry” [2] [15] natural and social scientists were unable to agree on the topic. Nobel laureate and university president David Baltimore argued that scientific knowledge is humanity’s highest purpose, and thus there should be no attempts to limit or direct the search for knowledge. Sissela Bok articulated an alternative perspective: There are even higher values than the acquisition of knowledge, and thus science should join with other forms of knowledge in supporting such values. The beliefs expressed reflected each scientist’s presumption about science.
Half a century earlier, Popper, too, addressed the presumptions of science, suggesting that the practice of science could be encompassed by three doctrines:
1) The scientist aims at finding a true theory or description of the world which shall also be an explanation of the observable facts.
2) The scientist can succeed in finally establishing the truth of such theories beyond all reasonable doubt.
3) The best, the truly scientific theories, describe the “essences” or the “essential natures” of things—the realities which lie behind appearances.
Science and the “Essence” of Things
Those who believe that science can answer questions not just about phenomena, but also about the “essence” of things (doctrine 3) will value science’s mode of inquiry above all others and believe human reason can solve all problems. Edward Teller and Jonas Salk expressed this view. Those who believe that science’s power is limited to explaining natural phenomena (doctrines 1 and 2) support equal opportunity for all modes of human inquiry and exhibit collaborative rather than autocratic scientific styles. Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, and most modern scientists whose writings I have cited fit well into this category.
There is ample evidence that most students and adults turn away from science when they perceive it as inaccessible, abstruse, mathematical, impersonal, divorced from the arts and humanities—and only for “brainy” males. Would they not be more attracted, and would not teaching be more effective, if science was understood as first and foremost a process of personal inquiry, usable by and transparent to all?
Scientists, teachers, and professors are well known to get satisfaction from belonging to an “elite” group who can “do science.” This is, too often, conveyed to students. I well remember my pride as a young woman, wearing my white lab coat and carrying my special slide rule (yes, before computers and now found only on eBay). But can we not retain pride in our skills and successes, and still open scientific inquiry to all? Should not understanding the difference between scientific and nonscientific evidence be central to scientific literacy? And would not societal problem solving be improved if problem solvers from the arts, humanities, industry, and government collaboratively combined their different kinds of evidence in addressing complex societal problems?
One Size Does NOT Fit All
Students need to know that one size does not fit all scientists. They need to know that science needs and welcomes inquirers with different personal and cultural interests, styles, and experiences, all united through shared rigorous, objective criteria for scientific evidence. They need to know that different approaches, but shared evidence, can entice more “secrets” from nature. Both science and society need scientists and leaders whose perspectives reflect the diverse needs and interests of the taxpayers supporting and applying their work. It follows that the scientific value added by the participation and leadership of women—as well as members of other groups now underrepresented in science—is essential to an open and democratic society.
Also read: Innovative New Art Exhibit Showcases the Importance of Coral Reefs
References
1. Andrade, E. N. 1952. Classics in Science: A Course of Selected Reading by Authorities. International University Society, Nottingham, U.K.
2. Daedalus. 1978. The Limits of Scientific Inquiry (spring).
3. Einstein, A. 1950. Out of My Later Years. Philosophical Library, New York, p. 256.
4. Einstein, A. 1934. The World as I See It. Covici, Friede, New York, p. 290.
5. Fruton, J. F. 1990. Contrasts in Scientific Style: Research Groups in the Chemical and Biochemical Sciences. Memoirs series, vol. 191, J. Stewart., Ed. American Philosophical Library, Philadelphia, p. 473.
6. Gladfelter, E. 2002. Agassiz’s Legacy: Scientists’ Reflections on the Value of Field Experience. Oxford University Press, New York, p. 437.
7. Goodstein, D. 2001. New York Times Book Review.
8. Hempel, C. 1966. Philosophy of Natural Science. Foundations of Philosophy series, E. & M. Beardsley, Eds. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
9. Holton, G. 1978. The Scientific Imagination: Case Studies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K, p. 382.
10. Jacob, F. 2001. Of Flies, Mice and Men. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
11. Medawar, P. 1979. Advice to a Young Scientist. Harper & Row, New York.
12. Polanyi, M. 1958. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
13. Popper, K. 1964. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
14. Popper, K. 1983. Realism and the Aim of Science, Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.
15. Root-Bernstein, R. 1988. Setting the stage for discovery: breakthroughs depend on more than luck. The Sciences (May/June) 26-34.
16. Selby, C. C. 1993. Technology: from myths to realities. Phi Delta Kappan (May): 684-689.
17. Selby, C. C. 2006. Journal of College Science Teaching (July/August).
About the Author
Cecily Cannan Selby is an affiliated scholar of the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. Her professional career has spanned more than five decades, including positions as a research biophysicist at MIT, Sloan Kettering, and Weill-Cornell Medical College. As an educator, she has been founding dean of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and chair of the department of mathematics, statistics, and science education at New York University. She is also the founding chair of the Council of the New York Hall of Science.
