Watching the Brain Think and the Surprises of Science
One unstated objective of science is to make a difference: to learn something, or make something, that changes the way people think or behave. Many of the biggest discoveries — the most important scientifically and the most consequential socially — are surprises, and their consequences are unimaginable at the time they are made. Who would have predicted the changes in society that have come from classification of the elements into the periodic table, or from quantum mechanics, or the World Wide Web? Who would have guessed that the first NMR spectrum of ethanol would grow into the ability to watch the brain think? The unpredictability of these big surprises makes us timid in our speculations: It is embarrassing to be publicly wrong, and big surprises make dunces of us all. But avoiding speculation makes science dreary and neglects our responsibility to society to warn of change even as we cause it.”
— Harvard professor George Whitesides, as quoted in the HBS case “The Whitesides Lab” by HBS professor Kent Bowen and former Lecturer/Postdoctoral Fellow Francesca Gino
