EDITORIALLY S P E A K I N G
September means a new start for most persons whose lives are in any way related to the academic community. Even the professor whose name has been on a course label for decades approaches the opening of a new term with reconsideration. What can he say to reveal his own enthusiasm and hopefully to kindle some in his students? A cynic's view is that the opening lecture is the one that means most to the professor and least to the student. This may he disconcertingly true a t the time, but seldom is it a valid commentary a t the end of a well taught course. The initial lecture should set the stage. The student should know what the professor thinks "it is all about!" Favorite themes for the first class meeting are definition, scope, point of view, or philosophy of science. This is important and the thoughtful student deserves it. However, the professor misses his chance t o excite an inquiring mind if ludicrous oversimplifications are delivered in a pontifical manner. "The chemist seeks truth by employing the scientific method," for example! George Gaylord Simpson, Agassiz Professor a t Harvard, has written a most stimulating essay in the Harcourt, Brace & World pamphlet, "Notes on the Nature of Science." (Copyright 1961, 1962) In defiance of our own warning about oversimplification, we would like to quote what should provide provocative themes on which professors may build their own variations. Attempts a t definitions of science have varied from T. H. Huxley's "common sense.. . t h e necessary made of working of the human mind" to Norman Campbell's "study of 'those judgments concerning which universal agreement can be obtained." On the face of them and without such qualifications as their authors did indeed provide, those definitions can lead t o abmrdities. Everyone knows that so-called common sense and the working of the human mind have produced an intolerable amount of mnsense. and that above the level of triviality there is hardly any scientific subject on which agreement is literally universal. Those two insdeauate definition8 are nevertheless related to
requires some expansion. The orderliness of science consists in seeking regularitiesrat,iondly definable relationships-among the enormously diverse On the more workaday phenomena of the world we live i n . level of the teaching m d the practice of science, an important
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them "data" if you like-are point is that isolated facts-dl meaningless. It is only their generalization and their ordering into principles that give them meaning. The development. of an organized system of (real or supposed) relationships m o n g phenomena is necessary but not sufficient for a definition of science; i t is not confined t o science. The important distinction between science and those other systematizations is that science is self-testing and self-correcting. The testing and oorrecting are done by means of observations that can be repeated with essentially the same results by normal persons operating by the same methods and with the same approach. That is the sense in which "universal agreement can (in principle) be obtained.". . . What iis correctly observed must be believed. The most fundamental reason far disagreement in science is, however, the inherent impossibility of complete certainty. There are here four main factors. First, one fact may disprove a theory and not all facts can be observed; therefore an investigator cannot completely discard the possihility that a discrepant phenomenon may occur. Second, in any complex situation the data. are rarely so complete that only one explanation (inferred relationship among the facts) can conceivably be correct. What can actually be estshlished is only s. degree of probability. In many instinces, indeed, the theories themselves are inherently probabilistic in nature, and that i i the third important factor in scientific uncertaintv.. . The final factor is that no scientific explanation so far Lhieved is in the fullest sense of the word complete.
The concept of "truth" in science is thus quite special. I t implies nothing eternal and absolute hut only a high degree of confidence after adequate objective self-testing and self-correctian.
Chemistry is not an exact science. If it were, we could not paraphrase the epigram by oue of the greatest chemists, G. N. Lewis, "The chemist never talks about 'in the last analysis,' rather he is interested in 'the next approximation'." What better first thoughts for chemistry students? Editorial Office Change of Address Beginning September 1, 1963 and continuing for the academic year 1963-64, the editorial officeof T H ~ SJOURNAL will be in the Department of Chemistry a t M I T where the editor will be in residence as an NSF Science Faculty Fellow. All editorial correspondence should be addressed: William F. Kieffer, Editor Journal of Chemical Education Room 2-077 Department of Chemistry Msssachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge 39, Massachusetts
Volume 40, Number 9, September 1963
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