Word: goodfield
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Goodfield's second romantic image is revealed by her quoting the aphorism of Rousseau "Hypotheses are the revelation of genius." For Goodfield, pure ideas and intuition are the stuff of research, the rest is technical, petty, routine and boring. But the refrain "ideas are cheap" is quite common in labs. Experiments, data. techniques and results are the requirements for ideas. the true ingredients of successful science...
...MANY WAYS, Goodfield's views are colored by those of her subject. Dr. Brito. Thus it is critical to ask if Brito and her lab are typical of today's biology. The answer is probably negative. One has only to note that few scientists would let an observer hang around for five years. even one as thoughtful and optimistic as Ms. Goodfield...
...Goodfield was fortunate to latch onto an exceptional lab at a productive time. But she depends too much on the flow of experiments, the blow-by-blow description of discovery to keep her book moving. There are no add personalities that stand out. no irreverant wits. Perhaps Brito's preference for "having quiet technicians and completely bland people around" really is wonderful. ("They don't notice anything wrong...They keep us all sane," Brito claims.) But this lack of funny incident, of weird quirks is what separates the book from other inside tours of biology, such as Horace Judson...
ALTHOUGH THERE ARE SOME factual miscus (all specimens viewed in an election microscope are dead), some undefined jargon (what is a "referee?"), the only real technical flaw is the need for a glossary. Still, Goodfield's book has its virtues. She gives us a clear look at a scientific Athens--a society of intellect held together by the bonds of mutual curiousity--a republic of the mind...
...greatest service Goodfield provides however, is simply her love in describing for the layman modern science and its workers. Popularizing science is a necessary project in a democratic culture where such work is subsidized by universities and government agencies. Yet since the time of Einstein (who was the first to write two accounts of his theories one for the public and one for the profession), science has slithered further and further away from the layman. Although popularization is becoming more common, in many ways it is also becoming less accessible. And science has become for many, a secret brotherhood dealing...