Did you ever read a scientific pape

Did you ever read a scientific paper that begins, "For no good reason at all I had a hunch that..." or "I was just fooling around one day when..."? No sir! Seldom does a trace of anything haphazard, anything human, appear in published reports of research experiments. The scientific paper will more likely begin: "In view of recent evidence concerning the Glockenspiel theory, it seemed advisable to conduct...." And the report will go on to describe a carefully thought-out experiment that followed not only a logical but also a chronological order. This was done, this resulted, therefore these conclusions were suggested. Scientific tradition demands that scientific papers follow that formal progression: method first, results second, conclusion third. The rules permit no hint that, as often happens, the method was really made up as the scientist went along, or that accidental results determined the method, or that the scientist reached certain conclusions before the results were all in, or that he started out with certain conclusions, or that he started doing a different experiment.

Much scientific writing not only misrepresents the workings of science but also does a disservice to scientists themselves. By writing reports that make scientific investigations sound as unvarying and predictable as a pavan, scientists tend to promulgate the curious notion that science is infallible. That many of them are unconscious of the effect they create does not alter the image in the popular mind. We hear time and again of the superiority of the "scientific method." In fact, the word "unscientific" has almost become a synonym for "untrue." Yet the final evaluation of any set of data is an individual, subjective judgment; and all human judgment is liable to error. Thoughtful scientists realize all this; but you wouldn't gather so from reading most scientific literature. A pompous, stilted style too often seizes the pen of the experimenter the moment he starts putting words on paper.

Words direct our lives, after all. And if the words in which we read the scientist's own unfolding story of his science are all cold and calculated, empty of foible or failing, above even mention of mistake, how are we to divine that in the vast majority of moments when he is not writing, the scientist is a genial, sensible, rather humble man? By what occult power are we to recognize that his "objective evaluations" in the scientific journals are actually not magnificent infallibilities but fortunate conclusions of persistently pursued hunches, exhaustively explored intuitions, and unexpected observations?

Editors of scientific publications are not without their reasons for the current style of scientific writing. Their journals aren't rich. Paper and printing are expensive. Therefore, it is expedient to condense articles as much as possible. Under pressure of tradition, the condensation process removes the human elements first. And few scientific writers rebel against the tradition. Even courageous men do not go out of their way to publicize their deviations from accepted procedures. Then, too, there is an apparent objectivity and humility attached to the third person, passive voice writing technique adopted in the preparation of most scientific papers. So, bit by bit, the true face of science becomes hidden behind what seems to the outsider to be a smug all-knowing mask. Is it any wonder that in the popular literature the scientist often appears as a hybrid superman-spoiled child?

No small contribution to modern culture could be the simple introduction, into the earliest stage of our public-school science courses, of a natural style of writing about laboratory experiments as they really happen. This is something that could be done immediately with the opening of classes this fall. It requires no preparation except a psychological acknowledgment of the obvious fact that the present form of reporting experiments is a mental strait jacket whose very appearance is calculated to repel the imaginative young minds science so sorely needs.

Dare the local schoolteacher depart from the stereotype imposed by tradition? I think he should. It would be foolish to expect every scientist to become a composite of, say, Pasteur and Hemingway. But the teacher could point out that a writing tradition which removes a portion of humanity is also liable to remove a portion of truth. He could encourage his students to report facts as they see them, including facts that convention might regard as "unscientific" and, therefore, out of place in a written report. The giants of science could serve as guides. Let me quote from the article in the June, 1929, issue of the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in which Sir Alexander Fleming, the English bacteriologist, announced the discovery of penicillin: «While working with staphylococcus variants [types of bacteria] a number of culture plates were set aside on the laboratory bench and examined from time to