"We have friends in other fields—in biology, for instance. We physicists often look at them and say, 'You know the reason you fellows are making so little progress?' (Actually I don't know any field where they are making more rapid progress than they are in biology today.) 'You should use more mathematics, like we do.' They could answer us—but they're polite, so I'll answer for them: 'What you should do in order for us to make more rapid progress is to make the electron microscope 100 times better.'"
— Richard P. Feynman "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom"
"A good pure researcher will, over the course of his/her/its career, get published a few times, see his/her/its work plagiarized, stolen, or otherwise borrowed by the commercial sector, and will be rewarded with an increasing sense of bitterness as he/she/it watches the Universe continue to spin down entropically in several senses of the word. We should not, therefore, blame the pure researcher for being an elitist jerk. It's some of the only pleasure he/she/it will derive from the quest for discoveries untainted by practical application.'"
Para Ventura: Okay... science? You said "memetics, linguistics and sociology."
Liz: Thanks. That particular meme is the reason my degree landed me a job slinging fast food.
Liz: Thanks. That particular meme is the reason my degree landed me a job slinging fast food.
"The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship."
Hingest: I came here because I thought [the N.I.C.E.] had something to do with science. Now that I find it's something more like a political conspiracy, I shall go home. I'm too old for that kind of thing, and if I wanted to join a conspiracy, this one wouldn't be my choice.
Studdock: You mean, I suppose, that the element of social planning doesn't appeal to you? I can quite understand that it doesn't fit in with your work as it does with sciences like sociology, but—
Hingest: There are no sciences like sociology. And if I found chemistry beginning to fit in with a secret police run by a middle-aged virago who doesn't wear corsets and a scheme for taking away his farm and his shop and his children from every Englishman, I'd let chemistry go to the devil and take up gardening again.
Studdock: You mean, I suppose, that the element of social planning doesn't appeal to you? I can quite understand that it doesn't fit in with your work as it does with sciences like sociology, but—
Hingest: There are no sciences like sociology. And if I found chemistry beginning to fit in with a secret police run by a middle-aged virago who doesn't wear corsets and a scheme for taking away his farm and his shop and his children from every Englishman, I'd let chemistry go to the devil and take up gardening again.
What a fellow Wilson is! If I could only throw the same enthusiasm into physiology that he does into psychology, I should become a Claude Bernard
at the least. His whole life and soul and energy work to one end. He drops to sleep collating his results of the past day, and he wakes to plan his researches for the coming one. And yet, outside the narrow circle who follow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for it.
Physiology is a recognized science. If I add even a brick to the edifice, every one sees and applauds it. But Wilson is trying to dig the foundations for a science of the future. His work is underground and does not show. Yet he goes on uncomplainingly, corresponding with a hundred semi-maniacs in the hope of finding one reliable witness, sifting a hundred lies on the chance of gaining one little speck of truth, collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting, lecturing, trying to light up in others the fiery interest which is consuming him.
I am filled with wonder and admiration when I think of him, and yet, when he asks me to associate myself with his researches, I am compelled to tell him that, in their present state, they offer little attraction to a man who is devoted to exact science. If he could show me something positive and objective, I might then be tempted to approach the question from its physiological side. So long as half his subjects are tainted with charlatanerie and the other half with hysteria we physiologists must content ourselves with the body and leave the mind to our descendants.
at the least. His whole life and soul and energy work to one end. He drops to sleep collating his results of the past day, and he wakes to plan his researches for the coming one. And yet, outside the narrow circle who follow his proceedings, he gets so little credit for it. Physiology is a recognized science. If I add even a brick to the edifice, every one sees and applauds it. But Wilson is trying to dig the foundations for a science of the future. His work is underground and does not show. Yet he goes on uncomplainingly, corresponding with a hundred semi-maniacs in the hope of finding one reliable witness, sifting a hundred lies on the chance of gaining one little speck of truth, collating old books, devouring new ones, experimenting, lecturing, trying to light up in others the fiery interest which is consuming him.
I am filled with wonder and admiration when I think of him, and yet, when he asks me to associate myself with his researches, I am compelled to tell him that, in their present state, they offer little attraction to a man who is devoted to exact science. If he could show me something positive and objective, I might then be tempted to approach the question from its physiological side. So long as half his subjects are tainted with charlatanerie and the other half with hysteria we physiologists must content ourselves with the body and leave the mind to our descendants.
—The Parasite (1894) by Arthur Conan Doyle
Physics theoretician: Brothers and sisters, do you want to live in a world where sociologists are told their work is complex and interesting and we are out of a job?! Do you want to have to treat chemists with respect?!
Audience: No! Never!
Audience: No! Never!
