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

Quote of the Month... December 2004

... Starting medical school was like entering a strong current that guided me steadily through a series of interlocking channels. I was never good at taking lecture notes or memorizing by rote, so, out of necessity, I developed a more intuitive method by reading all the texts and papers that I could find on a particular subject. In a way, this process was not unlike the popular Swedish sport orienteering, a game in which the participants are given a map and compass, and then race through the forest, navigating a triangular course. No trail exists, and, to succeed, you must be both a strong runner and a skilled navigator. I have always enjoyed this sport--the feeling of running alone through the pine forest, finding my way--much like the approach I have taken to solve scientific questions. ...

--Torsten N. Wiesel, in Brain and Visual Perception: The Story of a 25-Year Collaboration, Chapter 2

Quote of the Month... November 2004

[When the time comes when we can submit the dream to a methodical examination, when by methods yet to be determined we succeed in realizing the dream in its entirety (and that implies a memory discipline measurable in generations, but we can still begin by recording salient facts), when the dream's curve is developed with an unequalled breadth and regularity, then we can hope that mysteries which are not really mysteries will give way to the great Mystery. I believe in the future resolution of these two states -- outwardly so contradictory -- which are dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality, a surreality, so to speak, I am aiming for its conquest, certain that I myself shall not attain it, but too indifferent to my death not to calculate the joys of such possession.]

--André Breton, Le Manifeste du Surréalisme

Quote of the Month... July 2003

To return to the apprentice sushi master: his education seems a matter of passive observation. The young man cleans the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, bows to the clients, fetches ingredients, and in the meantime follows from the corners of his eyes, without ever asking a question, everything that the sushi masters are doing. For no less than three years he watches them without being allowed to make actual sushi for the patrons of the restaurant--an extreme case of exposure without practice. He is waiting for the day on which he will be invited to make his first sushi, which he will do with remarkable dexterity.

--Frans de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist, Prologue

Quote of the Month... June 2003

……四十億年は、私の経験にはない。私がこうした長年月を考えることができるのは、アナロジーによる。類推によるのである。なんの類推か。自分の一生の、である。一生が大ゲサなら、自分の過去から今までである。その間に私自身は変化し、さして薬にはなっていないにしても、とにかく経験を積んだ。そうした自分の変化について、私はなんらかの法則性を考えることはできるであろう。……（養老孟司『唯脳論』、「時間」より）

[ ... Four billion years is not something that one can experience personally. The only reason we can fathom these long periods of time is by analogy. Analogy to what?-- Analogy to one's lifetime. If "lifetime" is too grandiose a word, perhaps "your past up to the present moment" is more acceptable. During that time, we change, and although we may not improve markedly, we do gain experience, at least. And from these changes that we experience, we can extract some sort of regularity. ...]

--Takeshi Yoro, [Encephalism: A Neuroanatomical Worldview]

Quote of the Month... May 2003

... Theorizing at this stage is like skating on thin ice--keep moving, or drown. Ego, Id, and Superego are conceptions that help one to see and state the important facts of behavior, but they are also dangerously easy to treat as ghostly realities: as anthropomorphic agents that want this or disapprove of that, overcoming one another by force or guile, and punishing or being punished. ... When theory becomes static, it is apt to become dogma; and psychological theory has the further danger, as long as so many of its problems are unresolved, of inviting a relapse into the vitalism and indeterminism of traditional thought.

--D. O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, Introduction

Referring to psychological theories of Freud and Pavlov, and also science in general. Seems particularly germane to modern biology?

Quote of the Month... March 2003 (2)

There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest

--Edward Gibbon, The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. XLIX

Quote of the Month... March 2003

... One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

--J. Watson, The Double Helix, Chap. 2

Quote of the Month... February 2003 (4)

[What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Gasoline is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.]

--Simone Weil, [The Need for Roots], 1949

Quote of the Month... February 2003 (3)

[... Far more of metal, both white and red, have others, in mines and in exchanges. But among Danes daily bread is to be found in the hovels of the poor. And we have found true riches indeed in our land when few have too much and fewer too little. ...]

--N. F. S. Grundvig, Værker i Udvalg, vol. VII

Quote of the Month... February 2003 (2)

... Some of the challenge of science lies in the art of choosing a strong, if incompletely tested framework for thinking. The sooner one can recognize "correct" hypotheses and reject false ones, the faster the field can be advanced into new territory. However, the benefits must be balanced against the risks of undue speed: superficiality, weak science, and outright error.
--Bertill Hille, Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes, 3 ed.

Quote of the Month... February 2003

Live in the ward. Do not waste the hours of daylight in listening to that which you may read at night. But when you have seen, read. And when you can, read the original descriptions of the masters who, with crude methods of study, saw so clearly.

--Sir William Osler

Quote of the Month... January 2003

... It turns out that I am really an experimental chemist hiding as a theoretician. I think that is the key to my success. That is, I think I can empathize with what bothers the experimentalists. In another day I could have become an experimentalist. ...

--Roald Hoffmann