Hopefully, this chapter has demolished the idea that process of discovery can be reduced to an algorithm. But hopefully we have also shown that it is not totally mysterious--that when one looks closely at cases of discovery, one can make generalizations about the process that would prove of value to students, managers and all those interested in how human beings have managed to find order in the universe.
Could these generalizations be made more rigorous? Might there be aspects of the discovery process that are more algorithmic? Could we give more specific advice to teachers and managers? In the next chapter, we plunge more deeply into the literature on cognitive psychology of science and, to a lesser extent, sociology of science in an effort to find out.
What about motivation? Earlier, we sketched a picture of the heroic scientist, motivated by a search for the grail--but also by a desire to stake out here or his claim to be the first to find it. Albert Szent-Gyorgi once cynically remarked that, "If any student comes to me and says he wants to be useful to mankind and to into research to alleviate human suffering, I advise him to go into charity instead. Research wants real egoists who seek their own pleasure and satisfaction, but find it in solving the puzzles of nature" (Szent-Gyorgi quoted in Holton, 1978, p. 235). Indeed, one could argue that even the hero who returns with the Grail can bring misery and suffering: witness Einstein's famous E=MC2, which made possible the development of atomic weapons (see Chapter 4 for more details).
Is it possible to seek the Grail of scientific knowledge while at the same time promoting one's own career and also trying to benefit others? We will consider these issues in greater depth in Chapters 4 and 5. For now, let us turn to the question of whether scientific methods could be used to gain a better understanding of the process by which scientific discoveries are made.
This page was last edited: Wednesday, July 14, 1999