Pensées d’un Biologsite, Jean Rostand

Sum up of the book:

« Pensées d’un biologiste » of Jean Rostand is a philosophical thought on the vision of the world of a scientist, on various and varied topics. Moreover, it is also small remarks which can make us think about the needs of the men at a given time.

Extract of the book:

"The invention of the atomic bomb will have shown us, at least, what research can do when it is put to the test. The problems of cancer and tuberculosis would not be long in being solved if any country had to solve them. But they have against them to interest only the whole humanity. For years, man has dreamed of freeing the energy contained in the atom. No sooner has he realized his dream than he groans at the peril: were we naive enough to believe that we would play with colors without danger until the end? Since the discovery of the atomic disintegration, the humanity must resolve to live under threat of death. This feeling of lethality, so fertile for the individual, why should it not also be for the species? Science: the only way to serve men without becoming an accomplice of their passions. The misdeeds of scientism? Possibly - but those of "philosophism"? Those who maintain that science does not explain anything, we would like them to explain finally what it would be for them to explain There is nothing consoling to draw from the uncertainties of science. Dream, probability, certainty: three states of scientific truth. But like those bodies which pass directly from the gaseous state to the solid state, the dream, sometimes, "sublimates" into certainty without having even crossed the phase of the probable. It is always imprudent for a belief to make its nest in an obscure corner of science. In science, what a rest from itself! I do not think that researchers have much to fear from controls or instructions. No one is clever enough to foresee where the unwelcome truth may come from."