Abstract
There is no doubt that science is becoming a servant of politics and industry, to the great detriment of its cultural mission. In almost all countries throughout the world politicians and industrialists dispose of scientists, often decide on their work and sometimes even on their beliefs and convictions. This happens not only because some modern scientific activities require large resources. A more dangerous factor is the growing opportunism of many, mainly young, scientists to whom Science is only a modern way to a good career.
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The author is professor of microbiology and head of the Department of Experimental Pathology, Israel Institute for Biological Research, Ness-Ziona, Israel.
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Notes and References
“A scientist must not only have the right ideas, do the right experiments, and give birth to a paper. He also must build a coherent doctrinal corpus and force it into reviews and textbooks.” (A. Lwoff, ‘Factors Influencing the Evolution of Viral Diseases’, Bact. Reviews 23 (1959), 114.)
H. K. Schilling: ‘A Human Enterprise’, Science 127,No. 3310 (1958), 1324.
R. J. Dubos: Louis Pasteur, Boston, 1950, p. 120 et seq.
We find as early as 1683 that the ingenious Fred. Slave, M.D., F.R.S. commenting upon a ›murren‹ in Switzerland which carried off many cattle, says: “I wish Mr. Leeu-wenhoek had been present at the dissections of these infected Animals, I am persuaded he would have discovered some strange Insect or other in them”. (C. Dobell, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, London, 1932, p. 230). Real proofs of microorganisms as causes of infectious diseases were presented only two hundred years later.
L. Fleck: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache, Benno Schwabe, Basel, 1935. [Translation from Chicago ed., p. 43-Ed.]
M. Polanyi: Personal Knowledge, Chicago, 1953, pp. 13, 171, 151.
M. Polanyi: The Study of Man, London, 1959, p. 60.
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© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Fleck, L. (1986). Crisis in Science. In: Cognition and Fact. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 87. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4498-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4498-5_8
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