Whether unravelling DNA, curing polio or fighting AIDS, scientists have always found time for a good blue. Book review by John Carmody. The success and survival of modern civilisation are based almost entirely upon science but disappointingly few especially among our political and financial leaders seem to recognise or understand that fact.
Ignorance is the problem and, with it, a lack of respect for the scientific endeavour.
Australia, perhaps the most anti-intellectual and smugly pragmatic society in the Western world, has little regard for scholarship and reflectiveness. It is a voyage of discovery, a quest to understand the world we live in by thorough observation and measurement, and then by scrupulous analysis of our findings. Some of this is revealed in Hal Hellman's new book, which follows one that he published three years ago, Great Feuds in Science. I believe that the intellectual processes are essentially the same in both activities. The next and telling step is to subject the theory to further critical analysis.