A similar circumstance proved very beneficial to the
neurobiologist David Anderson of the California Institute
of Technology, who publicly announced his
serendipitous breakthrough in the New York Times
in July 2001. Researching neural stem cells, the cells
that build the nervous system in the developing
embryo, Anderson discovered the “magic fertilizer”
that allowed some of them to bloom into neurons,
sprouting axons and dendrites: “It was a very boring
compound that we used to coat the plastic bottom of
the Petri dish in order to afford the cells a stickier
platform to which to attach. Never would we have
predicted that such a prosaic change could exert
such a powerful effect. Yet it turned out to be the key
that unlocked the hidden neuronal potential of these
stem cells.”
An unanticipated variable seriously hampered the efforts
of biochemist Edward Kendall to isolate the
thyroid hormone thyroxine, which partly controls
the rate of the body’s metabolism. After four years of
meticulous work on the gland, he finally extracted
crystals of the thyroid hormone on Christmas morning
1914 at the Mayo Foundation in Rochester,
Minnesota. But when he moved to expand production,
Kendall could no longer recover active material.
Only after fourteen months of futile efforts was
he able to trace the cause of this setback to the decomposition
of the hormone by the use of large galvanized
metal tanks in which the extraction from the
gland was being done. The iron and copper in the
metal tanks rendered the crystals ineffective. From
then on, he used enamel vessels. By 1917, Kendall
had collected about seven grams of crystals and was
able to start clinical studies.
The Normal versus the Revolutionary
In his highly influential 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Thomas Kuhn contributed an idea that changed how we see the
history of science.6 Kuhn makes a distinction between “normal” and
“revolutionary” science. In “normal” science, investigators work within
current paradigms and apply accumulated knowledge to clearly defined
problems. Guided by conventional wisdom, they tackle problems
within the boundaries of the established framework of beliefs
and approaches. They attempt to fit things into a pattern. This approach
occupies virtually all working researchers. Such efforts, according
to Nobel laureate Howard Florey, “add small points to what
will eventually become a splendid picture much in the same way that
the Pointillistes built up their extremely beautiful canvasses.”
Kuhn portrays such scientists as intolerant of dissenters and preoccupied
with what he dismissively refers to as puzzle-solving. Nonetheless,
a period of normal science is an essential phase of scientific
progress. However, it is “revolutionary” science that brings creative
leaps. Minds break with the conventional to see the world anew. How
is this accomplished? The surprising answer may be “blindly”! Systematic
research and happenstance are not mutually exclusive; rather
they complement each other. Each leads nowhere without the other.
According to this view, chance is to scientific discovery as blind
genetic mutation and natural selection are to biological evolution. The
appearance of a variation is due not to some insight or foresight but
rather to happenstance. In groping blindly for the “truth,” scientists
sometimes accidentally stumble upon an understanding that is ultimately
selected to survive in preference to an older, poorer one.
As explained by Israeli philosophers of science Aharon Kantorovich
and Yuval Ne’eman, “Blind discovery is a necessary condition
for the scientific revolution; since the scientist is in general ‘imprisoned’
within the prevailing paradigm or world picture, he would not
intentionally try to go beyond the boundaries of what is considered
true or plausible. And even if he is aware of the limitations of the scientific
world picture and desires to transcend it, he does not have a
clue how to do it.”
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