Questions for Setting the Stage for Discovery by Hatton and Plouffe

  1. Answer the 5 questions on page 118.

    1. Why, according to Root-Bernstein, have traditional discussions of scientific method been inadequate?

    2. Why are the strategies of discovery less easily codified than the rules of scientific proof?

    3. What is the function of play? Why is it important? What habits of mind, attitudes, etc. does it foster - or reflect? In what ways does play contribute to the scientists ability to "court the unexpected"?

    4. The author quotes several scientists - among them Barbarba McClintock and Jonas Salk - to support his view that "a scientist is also wise to know intimiately, even to identify with, the things or creatures he studies." How does the scientist achieve such intamcy? Does it involve a rejection of "scientific objectivity"?

    5. Compare the author's statement, "All good theories contain, at hear, an ordering process that reveals hidden patterns," with Popper's (in Part II) that "every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition - it forbids certain things to happen."

  2. What are the differences between the discovery and the validation process? Are both equally methodical?

  3. What does Albert Szent Gyorgyi mean by: "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought"?

  4. What is the role of failure in the discovery process? Should a failure be seen as a negative or a positive part of the discovery process? Explain your answer.

  5. What does it mean to set the stage for discovery? How could you change you everyday routine to enhance your chance of making a discovery?

  6. Compare and contrast the commonly believed story about Pasteur discovery of immunization and the way it really happened.

  7. What is the role of playfulness in the discovery process? How a playful mind might help seeing what others have not seen?

  8. What is the definition of "intuition" by this reading? What is the meaning of the sentence "The reward for the internalization (personal engagement) of subject matter is intuition"? What's the role of intuition in the discovery process? Does the use of intuition mean that the discovery process is mostly random and influenced by chance events?

  9. Criticize the claims below:

    "Since in many cases, by no means all, the main activities related to discovery are not acknowledged by the prevailing views of how scientists use logic and reason, the process of discovery is illogical by nature"

    "The noble discovery can be found only through the anomaly or unexpected results"