The Art of Scientific Investigation (1957) by William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

Author:William Ian Beardmore Beveridge
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Research
Publisher: New York, Norton
Published: 2014-06-22T14:00:00+00:00

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SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING

SIR HOWARD FLOREY

G. S. WILSON

F. M. BLRNET

MAX PLANCK

SIR RONALD FISHER

C. H. ANDREWES

J. B. CONANT

OBSERVATION

tives, attention is immediately attracted to the places where the two do not exactly fit, that is, where there is a change in one relative to the other. It is noteworthy that this remembered whole cannot always be recalled to memory so as to enable details to be described."*^

This analogy should not be taken too literally because the same phenomenon is seen with memory of other things such as stories or music. A child who is familiar with a story will often call attention to slight variations when it is retold even though he does not know it by heart himself George continues :

" The perception of change seems to be a property of all of the sense organs, for changes of sound, taste, smell and temperature are readily noticed. ... It might almost be said that a continuous sound is only ' heard' when it stops or the sound changes." ^^

If we consider that the comparison of the old and new images takes place in the subconscious, we can draw an analogy with the hypothesis as to how intuitions gain access to the conscious mind. One would expect the person to become aware of the notable facts, that is, the changes, even though he may be unable to bring all the details into consciousness.

It is important to realise that observation is much more than merely seeing something; it also involves a mental process. In all observations there are two elements : {a) the sense-perceptual element (usually visual) and {b) the mental, which, as we have seen, may be partly conscious and partly unconscious. Where the sense-perceptual element is relatively unimportant, it is often difficult to distinguish between an observation and an ordinary intuition. For example, this sort of thing is usually referred to as an observation : "I have noticed that I get hay fever whenever I go near horses." The hay fever and the horses are perfectly obvious, it is the connection between the two that may require astuteness to notice at first, and this is a mental process not distinguishable from an intuition. Sometimes it is possible to draw a line between the noticing and the intuition, e.g. Aristotle commented that on observing that the bright side of the moon is always toward the sun, it may suddenly occur to the observer that the explanation is that the moon shines by the light of the sun.

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THE ART OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

Similarly in three of the anecdotes given at the beginning of this chapter, the observation was followed by an intuition.

Scientific observation

We have seen how unreliable an observer's report of a complex situation often is. Indeed, it is very difficult to observe and describe accurately even simple phenomena. Scientific experiments isolate certain events which are observed by the aid of appropriate techniques and instruments which have been developed because they are relatively free from error and have been found to give reproducible results which are in accord with the general body of scientific knowledge.

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