Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T15:46:48.301Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Prologue: Size matters and function counts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2011

Stephen Jay Gould
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Dean Falk
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
Kathleen R. Gibson
Affiliation:
University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
Get access

Summary

Standard proverbs often give us no guidance because they come in contradictory pairs, as in the relevant contrast for this preface: ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ vs. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ or ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ The best scientists try to balance these extremes by not wasting precious time on the truly undoable and unanswerable, while remaining open (indeed eager) to try the ‘crazy’ experiment that just might work. Science would become stodgy and stymied if practitioners did not often risk the second part of this pairing. (In one of the saddest ‘science stories’ I have ever heard, developmental biologist Eddy de Robertis told me that, when he proposed his utterly nutty, and brilliantly successful, experiment to search for homologs of Drosophila homeobox genes in vertebrates, only two members of his lab refused to participate for fear of being branded as fools – both graduate students. I do understand that pressures for conformity may fall more strongly upon beginners than upon established seniors. But if people won't think big and take risks at the outset of their careers, how will they ever develop this most essential of all habits among truly accomplished scientists?)

I met Harry Jerison in the early 1960s, when I was an undergraduate at Antioch College, and he a scientist at a local research lab, and a professor.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×