Conscience: Reestablishing the Union of Consciousness and Religion
Channel: Association for Bahá’í Studies
Date: 2024-01-18

John Grayzel - 2006 ABS Conference
Audio only

Philip Stokes’ "Pasteur’s Quadrant" raised provocative challenges to scientific research’s prevailing linear paradigm of basic research to applied research to development to productions and operations. Stokes proposed a yes-no matrix, with “consideration of use” and “quest for fundamental understanding” as the axes, yielding three alternatives: pure basic research, user inspired basic research, and pure applied research. Stokes urged holistic approaches that simultaneously seek fundamental understandings and use. But his metaphor left one square empty… a void representative of presumed “other” motivations. This paper examines at that quadrant and Stokes’ model through the role of science and motivations for pursuing science as projected in Bahá’í writings.