- Swetha Chandrasekar
- New York, NY
- United States
Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Student, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
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Is science just imagination in a straitjacket?
This week in my Bioelectricity class, we listened to an NPR interview with Frances Ashcroft. Ashcroft is a British scientist who made a discovery in 1984 that allows neonatal diabetes patients to take pills as insulin supplements instead of injections. In her interview, as she discussed her thoughts on the scientific process and developing her theory, she referenced a quote by Richard Feynman, is a renowned American theoretical physicist.
"Science is imagination in a straitjacket."
Many scientists would argue that science does not restrict imagination, but rather promotes it. How is it that a well renowned scientist and thinker like Feynman, could feel confined when seeking answers in science? Is science a vehicle for imagination or is it used to tie down imagination with facts? What experience could have caused him to have this opinion? Does science truly restrict the imagination as Feynman suggests, or is science a vehicle for imagination?
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Theodore A. Hoppe 200+
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/27/161888074/british-scientist-driven-to-find-spark-of-life
This is the transcript of that interview:
http://m.npr.org/news/Arts+%26+Life/161888074
This was Ashcroft's quote:
"As the American physicist Richard Feynman famously said, 'science is imagination in a straitjacket'. But the best scientists are those whose curiosity, insight, and skills are tempered by doubt. Doubt is at the heart of all we do."
Swetha Chandrasekar
Thank you for posting this! I forgot to do so in my initial post. I hope you enjoyed the interview.