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Medawar has forthright views on the use of technology to improve the world. He also considers that the traditional division of "pure" and "applied" science is unhelpful, probably deriving from the same perverse cast of mind that created the "romantic versus rational" dichotomy between imaginative and critical thinking, allied with the old Anglo-Saxon class distinction between science (for amateur "gentlemen") and technology (for grubby professional "players"). The traditional view, preserved jealously by pure scientists, is that researchers of high caliber should be allowed to follow their interests wherever they will, either in the belief that this is what the universities and the life of the mind are all about, or in the confident expectation that eventually fundamental work will pay off at the practical level. Medawar concedes
"This procedure works; that is, it works sometimes, and it may be the best we can do, but might not the converse approach be equally effective, given equal talent? That is, to start with a concrete problem, but then to allow the research to open out in the direction of greater generality...I can see no reason why this approach if it were to be attempted by persons of the same ability, should not work just as well as its more conventional counterpart. Research done in this style is always in focus, and those who carry it out, if temporarily baffled, can always retreat from the general into the particular."
It is increasingly accepted that science should have some strategic role to play in education but misconceived ideas about science have made it hard to work out what that role might be. A vacuum is waiting to be filled in the theory and practice of education, and Medawar's book should help to fill it. The "piling up the data" theory has to be put in its place (the dust-bin of history) because it promotes over specialisation, as though the person who spends the most time digging the most narrow trench will get further in the field. At the same time outsiders are discouraged from trying to find out what the scientists are up to, for how can they ever find the time to get into the trenches and master the accumulated store of information?
The alternative "hot air balloon" view of science may be more helpful and realistic. Rival theories do not depend on the sheer weight of evidence (most of the evidence can be used to support opposing theories), nor do they gain credibility by longevity alone. They need to compete for survival under critical scrutiny and tests. Five types of test can be applied: the test of evidence, the test of internal consistency, the test of consistency with other well-tested theories, the check on the problem (does the theory actually solve the problem, or just skirt around it) and the check of metaphysics (the least understood at this stage). With this view of knowledge people like Leonard Woolf could claim that he could become an expert in any field with three months of concentrated study (between running the Hogarth Press, writing Fabian tracts and socialising in Bloomsbury). More realistically we might follow the advice of Jacques Barzun in The House of Intellect
With a cautious confidence and sufficient intellectual training, it is possible to master the literature of a subject and gain a proper understanding of it: specifically, an understanding of the accepted truths, the disputed problems, the rival schools and the methods now in favor. This will not enable one to add to what is known, but it will give possession of all that the discipline has to offer the world.
There is much talk of the modern explosion of knowledge. This is mostly an explosion of publications, some of which advance our knowledge but only by a very small amount. Many do not even do as much as that. The existence of high quality science reporting in popular magazines (New Scientist etc) nullifies the despairing belief that the frontiers of science are receding ever further from view. These publications make Barzun's aim (if not Woolf's) entirely feasible for anyone who wants to keep informed of the main lines of scientific advance; to keep track of the balloons which float in the air, tugging at their mooring lines, while on board the balloons the infernal Popperian dialectic of conjecture and refutation rages, day and night.
This irreverent tone is apparent in several of the essays in this collection, notably in his review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man" and Koestler's "The Act of Creation". He had a highly skeptical attitude to pretence of all kinds, and was not hesitant to speak out.
Medawar won a Nobel Prize for medicine and he took a broad view on science and its relation to society. Everyone with an interest in science, especially biological science, will find many items of interest in this collection.
This irreverent tone is apparent in several of the essays in this collection, notably in his review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man" and Koestler's "The Act of Creation". He had a highly skeptical attitude to pretence of all kinds, and was not hesitant to speak out.
Medawar won a Nobel Prize for medicine and he took a broad view on science and its relation to society. Everyone with an interest in science, especially biological science, will find many items of interest in this collection.
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