Attribution of thoughts

Much of what I have to say has been stimulated by sources other than those I can cite or recall. A student's question, a colleague's comment, a paragraph or phrase read in a context now forgotten, a deep insight expressed by a scholar far more capable than I--all have stimulated my thinking in ways that I can no longer trace. Similarly, an absurdity in another writer's presentation or even a poorly designed and interpreted experiment may have strongly influenced my point of view. To all these now invisible sources, I am grateful.

-- W. R. Uttal, The New Phrenology, Acknowledgements

Quote of the Month... Jaunuary 2007

...if any sufficiently large segment of science is measured in any reasonable way, the normal mode of growth is exponential...exponential growth eventually reaches some limit, at which the process must slacken and stop before reaching absurdity. ... [in the saturation phase,] clearly there will be rapidly increasing concern over those problems of manpower, literature, and expenditure that demand solution by reorganization...

...the effort to gain more scientists increases the number at the lower levels at a greater rate than it does those on the higher levels... At a certain point it may no longer be worthwhile to sacrifice so much to increase inducements and opportunities when the only result is a declining overall standard...

...Once we are committed to paying scientists according to their value or the demand for their services, instead of giving them, as we give other dedicated groups, merely an opportunity to survive, there seems no way back. It seems to me evident that the scientists who receive the just and proper award of such recognition are not the same sort of scientists as those who lived under the old regime, in which society almost dared them to exist...

...From modern studies of creative ability in the scientific fields it appears that general and specific types of intelligence have surprisingly little to do with the incidence of high achievement. At best, a certain rather high minimum is needed, but once over that hump the chance of becoming a scientist of high achievement seems almost random...

-- Derek de Solla Price, 1963, Little Science, Big Science

Survival value in evolution

It is often argued that if nature took the trouble to create the cortex in a certain way, it must have a value for the survival of the species. However, "survival value" does not necessarily imply better functioning in the adult years. Instead, it may mean a better chance for environmental adaptation at an early age, or a more efficient use of the genetic code that is required for the growth of the cortex in the embryo.

-- M. Abeles, Corticonics, p. 40