Scientific inquiry

“ Medical research, therefore, is not only justifiable, but obligatory in a profession that is specially charged with the care and advancement of individual and national health, and, as will be seen later, observation, induction, and rational experiment form the essential methods of scientific inquiry. ”

“ The stage of investigation now reached requires us to consider recent advances in our knowledge of more complicated organisms. This leads into the line of observation disclosing steadily advancing complexity of structure, and brings us into contact with the claim that man be included within the area of scientific inquiry, and regarded as a more fully organized life to which lower orders are not only pointing, but actually tending. ”

“ Science being proved truth, scientific method requires that all the factors which concern the subject of research shall be duly considered, in order to arrive at correct thought respecting the special subject of inquiry. ”

“ And the great scientific movement of the time, which at first seemed to draw away all interest from speculative inquiry, tended in the long run, especially by the advance of biological study, to raise metaphysical questions which the methods of science were incapable of answering. ”

“ In scientific research this accumulation of associates has been methodized by Mill as ‘four methods of experimental inquiry.’ By the method of Agreement, of Difference, of Residues, and of Concomitant Variations, we make certain lists of cases, and by ruminating these lists in our minds the cause we seek will be more likely to emerge. But the final stroke of discovery is only prepared, not effected by them. The brain tracts must, of their own accord, shoot the right way at last, or we shall still grope in darkness. ”

“ The theorists of scientific management seem to think that the most subtle methods are indispensable for physical measurements, but for psychological inquiry nothing but a kind of intuition is necessary. ”

“ The popular idea of scientific investigation is a vehement, aimless collection of little facts, collected as a bower bird collects shells and pebbles, in methodical little rows, and out of this process, in some manner unknown to the popular mind, certain conjuring tricks—the celebrated “wonders of science”—in a sort of accidental way emerge. ”

“ I replied truthfully, "even before my experience of this evening went so far toward convincing me. But, with the examples I have seen, I felt that true scientific control was lacking. With all their science, most of the investigators trust too greatly." ”

“ But my contention is, that no new principle of action has any claim to scientific acceptance, save upon evidence as complete and satisfactory as that which would be required in any other scientific investigation. ”

“ Although we cannot always isolate our factors, control our processes, and otherwise apply scientific method, with results as conclusive as those obtained in laboratories of chemistry, physics, or biology, we need not therefore reject scientific method in favor of a rule-of-thumb. ”

“ The tests which we are making are given for the advancement of science and for the information of the person tested. By scientific means we will be able to separate characteristics derived from heredity and environment and to treat each class separately. ”

“ Science has been built up on the basis of the inquiry into nature's processes. It is all the time inquiring: "What do we find under the microscope, through the telescope, in the chemical and physical reactions, in the examination of the earth and its products, in the observation of the functions of animals and plants, or in the structure of the brain of man and the laws of his mental functioning?" If it establishes an hypothesis as a means of procedure, it must be determined true or abandoned. ”

“ Nearly all our medical and surgical knowledge has been obtained by observation and study, either of the results of experiments made by ourselves, or by the course of nature for us; and the former is often attended by immeasurably less pain and expence than the latter. No one who has ever made in a proper manner new experiments, would venture to assert that valuable knowledge is not gained by them; and this statement is as correct of experiments in physiology as in all the other sciences. ”

“ In fact, when the original object of inquiry is the attainment of some practical end, the dominant work of experimentation, when properly conducted, soon comes to be the investigation of special questions that strictly pertain to some department of the allied sciences. ”

“ But I would like to call attention here to what appears to me a fundamental condition of scientific work and thereby a necessary result of scientific training. Science is naught if not exact. Accurate observation, accurate record, accurate deduction from data, all of which may be reduced to simple, plain honesty. Anything else is error, not science. ”

“ In the earlier stage of physical research, all observation and experiment lead forward to general results, which gain ready acceptance because they may be said to be involved in scientific procedure itself. ”

“ Both these books, as channels by which the experimental labours of each investigator reached the prepared and instructed public, exercised at once, and have continued ever since to exercise, an enormous effect on thought as well as on knowledge. They transformed the methods by which man approaches scientific investigation, and while they instructed they stimulated a new ardour for instruction. ”

“ But the laborers in the field are all too few, and the reasons therefor are not far to seek. One of these undoubtedly is the high scientific attainment necessary to a successful prosecution of this kind of investigation. The physiological student must be a physicist, a chemist, an anatomist, and a physiologist, all at once. ”

“ The legitimate aim of all systematic, exact experiments is to lay a foundation of well-ascertained and closely related facts on which may be developed a superstructure of science to supersede the theoretical speculations which form an important part of the prelude of scientific discovery. ”

“ This view is strengthened by the spirit with which he sees scientific investigation prosecuted. It is well understood on all sides that when such investigations are pursued in a spirit really recognized as scientific, no merely utilitarian object is had in view. ”

“ Mere tentative trials, costly and laborious, with almost even chances for and against success, have taken the place of rigorous, careful, strictly scientific work, based upon definite and certain foundations. In short, the arts have suffered from the fact that neither chemistry nor physics can yet claim to be really an exact science. The question of the endowment of research, then, may well be put in this shape. Laboratories should be established in which adequate corps of thorough specialists shall coöperate in those investigations which individuals cannot undertake. ”

“ And, in truth, there is scarcely any investigation in the whole body of a science requiring so high a degree of analysis and abstraction, as the inquiry, what the science itself is; in other words, what are the properties common to all the truths composing it, and distinguishing them from all other truths. ”

“ There are very many, not only among educated people who take an interest in science, but even among specialists, who will welcome a work of reasonable compass and handy form containing a trustworthy treatment of the various departments of Natural History by men who are familiar with, and competent to deal with, the latest results of scientific research. ”

“ The volume to which the reader's attention is called is chiefly an exposition of the author's views on the scientific value of biological experimentation. With some of his conclusions, there will be little or no dispute among members of the medical profession. But in defending the moethods of physiological experiment, has he been scrupulously accurate and uniformly fair? Is there to be discerned any tendency to exaggeration, to over-statement or to suppression of vital facts? Eager as he is to charge inaccuracy upon others, has he been always accurate himself? ”

“ It is characteristic of the progress of research that as one proceeds the horizon broadens and new questions spring up in the pathway of the investigator. He does not solve the problems he sets out to solve, but opens a lot of new ones. This is one of the features of scientific research that make its votaries characteristically optimistic.
Experimental Work.—Among the recent influences tending to advance biology, none is more important than the application of experiments to biological studies. ”

“ It was thought that the temper of the really scientific man, so patient in research, so accurate and conscientious, so slow to dogmatize, so deferential to others, might be fostered by experimental science in the schools, acquiring "knowledge at first hand," making experiments, looking with great respect at balances, weighing and measuring, and giving an account of results. ”

“ It is a general truth that the physical sciences of light and heat are based upon mechanical conditions of the particles of matter; that the science of chemistry is founded upon physics; that biological phenomena are dependent upon physical and chemical conditions; that psychological subjects are based upon biology; and that biological science cannot progress excepting in proportion to the advance of the sciences on which it is based. ”

“ The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. ”

“ III. Scientific research in biology must be based upon close and extensive observation of the varying forms of animal life, under natural conditions, with post-mortem examination of the records left by health and disease. Experiments, whether for the repair of lesions or the cure of disease, can only become scientific when made upon the type of life to be benefited by the experiment. ”

“ There are only two modes in which laws of nature can be ascertained--deductively and experimentally; including under the denomination of experimental inquiry, observation as well as artificial experiment. Are the laws of the formation of character susceptible of a satisfactory investigation by the method of experimentation? ”

“ The Study of the Biological and Physical Sciences.—The last century is marked by scientific development along several {466} rather distinct lines as follows: the study of the earth, or geology; animal and vegetable life, or biology; atomic analysis, or chemistry; biochemistry; physics, especially that part relating to electricity and radioactivity; and more recently it might be stated that investigations are carried on in psychology and sociology, while mathematics and astronomy have made progress. ”

“ Another classification which the scientific man makes is to distinguish between the two kinds of truth in each respective realm, and to separate that kind which may be demonstrated to the experience from that which must be taken on hearsay. That is, in the natural realm, in the department of chemistry, for example, the laws of chemical action can be put to the laboratory test of experiment, while the history of the science of chemistry must always be taken on hearsay. ”

“ The Trend of Scientific Investigations.—While research is carried on in many lines, with many different objectives, it may be stated that intense study is devoted to the nature of matter and the direct connection of it with elemental forces. ”

“ The liberal space at our disposal will permit us, at any rate for the present, to accommodate both classes of workers, without risk of the extermination of either. Meanwhile I have, then, to occupy your time with a few words on two subjects: on biological research, and on biological teaching.
One hears a good deal talked nowadays of scientific research, and among it a good deal of what I cannot but think mischievous nonsense about the peculiar powers required by scientific investigators. ”

“ All experiments made with an intelligent purpose by a scientific man or medical practitioner upon himself.
3. All experiments made with their consent upon physicians, surgeons, pathologists, medical students or other scientific men, who, aware of the nature of the investigation and of possible results, voluntarily offer themselves as "material." ”

“ Add to this the fact that every conclusion is not only based upon these fundamental scientific principles, but has been carefully verified by investigation and observation in not only hundreds but thousands of cases, and has been used daily for years under the trying conditions of actual commercial practice, and this science has passed out of the merely experimental stage. ”

“ Anyone conversant with a single branch of Natural Science is aware that experiment, as well as observation, is necessary. Who would expect discoveries in physics, or in chemistry, without laboratories and experiments? Do not botanists investigate the functions of plants by dissection, by microscopic and chemical investigation, and by experiment? ”

“ But it can grasp the general character of scientific procedure, appreciate its difficulties and dangers, understand the expedients for meeting them, and trace it to its roots in the constitution of the human mind and in the needs of life (§ 35) .
(5) In virtue of its general grasp of the aim and method of the sciences a logic of science can at times offer advice to scientists: it may draw their attention to the general problems which their work involves, but which are apt to be overlooked by specialists, such as the claims of consistency and novelty and the regulation of risks (§ 36) . ”

“ They refer us triumphantly to the "scientific" investigation of a Hare, a Crookes, a Butterow, and other well-known "natural investigators!" However, he who examines this startling literature, will only become more confirmed in his ideas. The way alone in which these "investigators" perform their experiments, and the manner in which they make their reports, prove very clearly that they are really no investigators at all. ”