P Medawar Quotes

The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all.

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.

There is no certain way of telling in advance if the day- dreams of a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth will carry a novice through the frustration of seeing experiments fail and of making the dismaying discovery that some of one's favorite ideas are groundless.

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein—it rejects it.” —P. B. Medawar

some people, educationally over-endowed with the tools of philosophy, cannot resist poking in their scholarly apparatus where it isn’t helpful. I am reminded of P. B. Medawar’s remark about the attractions of ‘philosophy-fiction’ to ‘a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought’.

I am often asked, 'What made you become a scientist?' But I can't stand far enough away from myself to give a really satisfactory answer, for I cannot distinctly remember a time when I did not think that a scientist was the most exciting possible thing to be.

Is common failing ... To fall in love with a hypothesis and to be unwilling to take no for an answer. A Love affair with a pet hypothesis can waste years of precious time. There is very often no finally decisive yes, though quite often there can be a decisive no.

Only human beings guide their behaviour by a knowledge of what happened before they were born and a preconception of what may happen after they are dead; thus only humans find their way by a light that illuminates more than the patch of ground they stand on. P. B. and J. S. MEDAWAR, The Life Science (1977)

For these reasons a young scientist must not be disheartened if he does not become the eponym of a natural principle phenomenon or disease. Although the importance of discoveries maybe overrated no young scientists need think that he will gain a reputation or high performant merely by compiling information particularly information of the kind nobody really wants. But if he makes the world more easily understandable by any means whether theoretical or experimental he will learn his colleagues gratitude and respect.

Another motive [to commit fraud] may be the fraudster’s pathologically mistaken views on what science is about. The immunologist and Nobelist Sir Peter Medawar has argued, perhaps counter-intuitively, that scientists who commit fraud care too much about the truth, but that their idea of what’s true has become disconnected from reality. ‘I believe,’ he wrote, ‘that the most important incentive to scientific fraud is a passionate belief in the truth and significance of a theory or hypothesis which is disregarded or frankly not believed by the majority of scientists – colleagues who must accordingly be shocked into recognition of what the offending scientist believes to be a self-evident truth.’103 The physicist David Goodstein agrees: ‘Injecting falsehoods into the body of science is rarely, if ever, the purpose of those who perpetrate fraud,’ he suggests. ‘They almost always believe that they are injecting a truth into the scientific record … but without going through all the trouble that the real scientific method demands.’104 104. Medawar, The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice , p. 197. 103. David Goodstein, On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010): p. 2.

Another little rule (for medical scientists especially) is that mice, rats, and other laboratory animals should never be injected. Few hypodermic needles are large enough for even the smallest mouse to pass through, especially if it is injected with something. ("Mice were injected wiht rabbit serum albumin mixed with Freund's adjuvant," we read. "Ah, but what into?" the cry goes up.)

But what will a scientist do to resolve his problem? Something of which he can be quite certain is that no more compilation of factual information will serve his purpose. No new truth will declare itself from inside the heap of facts. It is true that Bacon and Comenius and Condorcet too sometimes wrote as if they believed that the collection and classification of empirical facts would lead to an understanding of nature but in taking this view they were guided by a rather special consideration they felt under a strong obligation to refute the idea that deduction was an act of mind that could lead to the discovery of new truth that an act of mind alone could enlarge the understanding. The the philosophic and scientific writing of the 17th century particularly the writing of Bacon, Boyle, and Glanville for example is full of dismissive references to Aristotle's way of thinking in the tradition of which they had all grown up.

It is not methodologically an exaggeration to say that Fleming eventually found penicillin because he has been looking for it... Good luck is almost always preceded by an expectation that it will gratify. Pasteur is well known to have said that fortune favors the prepared mind, and Fontenelle observed, 'Ces hasards ne sont que pour ceux qui jouent bien !

Benzer düşünceler, aceminin haftalar veya aylarını 'literatüre hakim olma'ya harcaması için de sözkonusudur. Kitap öğretisine aşırı bağımlılık hayal gücünü sınırlayıcı ve köstekleyici bir etki yapar. Başkalarının yaptığı araştırmalar üzerinde durmaksızın kafa yormak bazen, psikolojik açıdan, bizzat araştırma yapmanın yerini tutmaktadır; tıpkı roman okumanın, gerçek hayatta yaşanılacak romanların yerini alması gibi.

Ben zekaya ve zeka yeteneğindeki kalıtımsal farklara inanırım. Ancak, zekanın bir tek sayı ile -I. Q. (zeka testi) sonucu gibi- ölçülebilecek basit bir yetenek olduğuna inanmıyorum. Bu ölçümlemeyi kabul eden psikologlar o kadar tutarsız beyanlarda bulunmuşlardır ki bunu konularını zedelemek için bilerek yaptıklarına inanmamak çok zor oluyor.

Hatalı bilimsel varsayımlar, sonradan yerlerine doğrularının konulabileceği düşünüldüğünde mazur görülebilirler; ancak, çalışmalarını ona inanmaya devam ederek sürdürenlere çok zarar verebilirler. Çünkü, teorilerine aşırı hayran olan bilimciler deneylerin ortaya koyduğu 'hayır' yanıtını kabul etmekten de aşırı ölçüde kaçınırlar. Bazen de bilimciler teorilerini sınamaya tabi tutmak yerine çevresinde oyalanır; yalnız ikinci derece sonuçları test eder, doğrudan ilgili olmayan ikincil konularla uğraşırlar; hipotezlerini çürütebilecek bir sonucun riskini göze alamazlar.

Özetin yazılması, yazarın kavrama ve dengeleme yeteneğini -neyin gerçekten önemi olup neyin atlanabileceğini takdir yeteneğini- ortaya koyar. Özet kendi sınırları içinde eksiksiz olmalıdır. İncelenen hipotezin belirlenmesiyle başlayıp değerlendirilmesiyle bitebilir.

Nobel kazananlardan bazıları araştırmayı bırakır ve vaktini dünyayı dolaşıp değişik toplantılara katılarak geçirir. Bazen de, Bilim, İnsanlık, Değerler, İnsan Çabası veya buna benzer soyut sözcüklerden oluşan) konularda konferans verir. Bu saygın kişilerin egoları, kendilerine imza için sunulan bir sürü manifesto ile daha da kabarır; çünkü, imzaları bu manifestoların lehine büyük ağırlık koyacaktır. Bir örnek: "Dünya ulusları bundan böyle dostluk ve uyum içinde yaşamalı ve politik anlaşmazlıkları çözmek için savaş araçları kullanmaktan vazgeçmelidir.

Genç bilimciler işlerin yürütülmesinde yeterince söz sahibi olmamaktan yakınıp, sonra da onlara bu hakları kullanabilecekleri komitelerde görev verildiği zaman bundan şikayet etme yoluna gitmemelidirler.

Olaylara ve onlara dayalı hesaplamalarla uğraşan soğuk, ciddi, "bilimci" tipi, yoksul, hırpani, dağınık, belki de veremli olup zaman zaman şiirsel cinnete yakalanan şair tipinden aşağı kalır bir karikatür değildir.

Bilimsel araştırma, sonuçları açıklanmadan önce bitmiş sayılmaz.

Okul çocuklarına ders anlatmaya vakit ayıran her bilimci, dinleyicilerine hakim olup olmadığını hemen anlar. Çocuklar sessizce oturmaz ve eğer sıkılırlarsa kıpırdanmaya başlarlar. Hoca bazen tarla dolusu fareye hitap ettiğini sanır. Ama ilgi duyduklarında minikler sakin sakin otururlar.

Sonuç olarak bilim, doğal dünyanın neye benzediği hakkındaki en son düşüncelerimizi temsil eden, birbirine mantıkla bağlanmış teoriler ağıdır.

Bilim açısından sakıncalı bir başka görüş de, astlarına emirler verip onların etrafta koşuşturarak emirleri yerine getirmelerinin bilimsel araştırma yapmak olduğu sanısıdır.

Kültür konusunda kendini küçümsenmiş ve yetersiz hisseden bir bilimci, klasik edebiyat ve güzel sanatlar dünyasından tamamen uzaklaşarak teselli bulur. İncinmiş bir ruh için başka bir deva da 'çokbilmiş' olmaktır. Bu durumda çevresindekiler, o günlerin gözde senaryoları, yorumları, Gödel teoremi, Chomsky'nin dilbilimi kavramı, güzel sanatlarda Rosicrucian'cı etkiler konularındaki göz kamaştırıcı konuşmaları karşısında şaşkına dönecektir. Bu, gerçekten korkunç bir intikam; ancak, eski dostlarının onu görünce kaçışmaları ile sonuçlanır. Çokbilmiş konuşma biçiminde en sık olarak kullanılan şudur: "x diye bir şey yoktur; herkesin x dediği şey gerçekte y dir." Burada x, insanların inandığı herhangi bir şey olabilir; örneğin Rönesans, romantizmin yeniden canlanışı veya sanayi devrimi; y ise işçi sınıfının gönlünde yattığı söylenen en önemli şey. Yine de çokbilmişlik bilimcilerin meslek hastalıklarından sayılmaz. Benim tanıdığım en kötü çok bilmişlerin ikisi de ekonomistti.

İşbirliği biraz ruh cömertliği gerektirir ve bir genç bilimci kıskançlığa benzer bir huy fark eder, arkadaşlarını kıskandığını hissederse başkaları ile çalışmaya girmemelidir.

A formal paper should therefore begin with a paragraph of explanation that describes the the problem under investigation and the main lines of the way the author feels he has been able to contribute to its solution. Great pains should be taken over the papers summary which should make use of the whole of the journey's ration of space 1/5 or 1/6 off the length of the text as the case may be

...today, a young hopeful attaches himself as a graduate student to some senior scientist and hopes to learn his trade and be rewarded by a master's degree or doctorate of philosophy bad evidence that he has done so.

... but conventional wisdom frowns upon it and is greatly opposed to young graduates continuing in the same department; lips are pursed, the evils of academic inbreeding piously rehearsed, and sentiments hardly more lofty or original than that "travel broadens the mind" are urged upon any graduate with an inclination to stay put. .... Inbreeding is often the way in which a great school of research is built up. If a graduate understands and is proud of the work going on in his department, he may do best to fall into step with people who know where they are going. A graduate student should by all means attach himself to a department doing work that has aroused his enthusiasm, admiration or respect; no good will come of merely going wherever a job offers, irrespective of the work in progress.

No, the problem ( necessary to achieve important scientific discoveries) must be such that it matters what the answer is- whether to science generally or to mankind.

Isolation is disagreeable and bad for graduate students. The need to avoid it is one of the best arguments for joining some intellectually bustling concern.

I mean application, diligence, a sense of purpose, the power to concentrate, to persevere and not be cast down by adversity_by finding out after long and weary inquiry, for example, that a dearly loved hypothesis bis in large measure mistaken.

... It is my recollection of these bad times that accounts for the earnestness of my advice to young scientists that they should have more than one string to their bow and should be willing to take no for an answer if the evidence points that way.

A novice must stick it out until he discovered whether the rewards and compensations of a scientific life are for him commensurate with the disappointments and the toil; but if once a scientist experiences the exhilaration of discovery and the satisfaction of carrying through a really tricky experiment- once he has felt that deeper and more expansive feeling Freud has called the "oceanic feeling" that is the reward for any real advancement of the understanding- then he is hooked and no other kind of life will do.

... the satisfaction of Knowing that something is known..

A good tutor taught the whole if his subject and not just that part of it in which he himself happened to be especially interested or proficient; to 'teach' did not, of course, mean to 'impart factual information,' a relatively unimportant consideration, but rather to guide thought and reading and encourage reflection.

Yet an understanding of the scientific enterprise, as distinct from the data and concepts and theories of science itself, is certainly within the grasp of us all. It is, after all, an enterprise conducted by men and women who might be our neighbors, going to and from their workplaces day by day, stimulated by hopes and purposes that are common to all of us, rewarded as most of us are by occasional successes and distressed by occasional setbacks. It is an enterprise with its own rules and customs, but an understanding of that enterprise is accessible to any of us, for it is quintessentially human. And an understanding of the enterprise inevitably brings with it some insight into the nature of its products.

Too much reading may crab and confine the imagination.

Too much reading may crab and confine the imagination... The beginner must read, but intently and choosily and not too much.

It is psychologically most important to get results, even if they are not original. Getting results, even by repeating another's work, brings with its great accession of self-confidence: the young scientist feels himself one of the club at last, can chip in at seminars and at scientific meetings with "My own experience was..." Or "I got exactly the same results" or "I'd be inclined to agree that for this particular purpose medium 94 is definitely better than 93", and then can sit down again, tremulous but secretly exultant.

As they gain experience scientists reach a stage when they look back upon their own beginnings in research and wonder how they had the temerity to embark upon it considering how thoroughly ignorant and and equipped they were. That may well have been so; but fortunately their temperaments must have been sufficiently sanguine to assure them that they were not likely to fail where so many others not very unlike themselves had succeeded, and sufficiently realistic, too, to understand that their equipment would never be complete down to the last button- that there would always be gaps and shortcomings in their knowledge and that to be any good they would have to go on learning all their lives.

.. I have described the art of research as 'the art of the soluble' ... Making a problem soluble by finding out ways of getting at it. To quantify is not to be a scientist, but goodness, it does help.

... broken English is the international language of science. In international congresses the nations are distinguished not by styles of scientific research but by the emergence of different national styles in the delivery of scientific papers.

There is no quicker way for a scientist to bring discredit upon himself and on his profession than roundly to declare- particularly when no declaration of any kind is called for- that science knows or soon will know the answers to all questions worth asking...

.. science and civilization stand shoulder to shoulder in a common endeavor to work for the betterment of mankind.

It is, in the planning stage, anyway, more like a session of gag writers, for although each one knows, as all scientists know, that having an idea - a brainwave- can be only a personal event, each also knows that an atmosphere can be created in which one member of the team sparks off the others do that they all build upon and develop each other's ideas. In the outcome, nobody is quite sure who thought of what. The main thing is that something was thought of. A young scientist who feels a strong compulsion to say " That was my idea, you know," or "Now that you have all come round to my way of thinking..." is not cut out for collaborative work, and he and his colleagues would do better if he worked in his own.

After graduate students have taken their phd's they must or no account continue with their are PhD work for the remainder of their lives easy and tempting though it is to type up loose ends and wonder down attractive byways.

The number and complexity of the techniques and supporting disciplines used in research are so large that a novice may easily be frightened into postponing research in order to carry on with the process of 'equipping himself'. As there is no knowing in advance where a research enterprise may lead and what kind of skills it will require as it unfolds, this process of 'equipping oneself' has no predeterminable limits and is bad psychological policy, anyway; we always need to know and understand a great deal more than we do already and to master many more skills than we now possess.

Whatever may be thought about the Ph.D. treadmill, this new postdoctoral revolution is an unqualifiedly good thing, and it is very much to be hoped that the patrons and benefactors if science will not allow it to languish.

A scientist soon discovers that he has become a member of the cast of them in the context "What mischief are they up to now?" Or "They say we shall colonize the Moon in fifty years.