BIOL 101 Lecture 6: Biology 13
Document Summary
In research the front line is almost always in a fog, wrote francis crick in his 1988 memoir, what mad pursuit. James watson, he discovered the structure of dna, an effort that brought him to the front line of research, which is where he remained to the end of his long, produ(cid:272)ti(cid:448)e life. Cri(cid:272)k"s book makes clear what a tremendous difference there is between learning something about nature and discovering something about it. In learning, dozens of voices stand ready to instruct; there are books, lectures, videos, cds a world of well-organized information. The person who seeks to discover something about nature, meanwhile, is confronted with silence. Nature goes on: cells divide, chromosomes condense, birds migrate. All the researcher has as a guide are the things themselves, working away. The trick is to devise some test (called an experiment) that can make natures routine operations yield information.
