Scientific Method in Biology/Chapter 4
IV.
RIGHT AND WRONG METHOD.
IT must be carefully noted that the wrong involved in inflicting torture upon a living creature is the violation of a rational principle. The employment of torture or of painful experiment in biological research is not a question of the right to gain knowledge. It is a question of how we seek to gain knowledge. It applies directly to method.
Thus, the fact observed by Paget, that in a patient who vomited all fat, the pancreas alone was found on post-mortem examination to be diseased, is worth more than a series of experiments on lower animals of different constitution from our own.
In the slow approach towards truth—which is the great object of science—no single method is indispensable. The human mind is so full of activities; Nature presents such an infinite variety of resources, that progress in research can never be hindered by the choice of right instead of wrong method.
This is well stated by one of our most experienced investigators when he says:
'Methods run with the manners and customs of the ages. In science there is no one method that can be considered indispensable. Attributes are indispensable; observation, industry, accuracy are indispensable; methods are not. They may be convenient, they may be useful, they may be expedient, but nothing more.'
This admirable statement throws a flood of light upon the confusion and perplexity of the present controversy. It shows the error of both the so-called unscientific and scientific parties. It shows the error (not unnatural) in the former of confounding together experiment, research, laboratory, and scientific investigation, and classing them under one indiscriminate ban of cruelty; it also shows the narrow vision and false reasoning of those who claim that right and wrong have no meaning when applied to the investigation of phenomena supposed to be revealed by the senses. or state that the collecting of so-called facts, named knowledge, is an end in itself, to be unrestrained and justified in itself.
That interesting book, 'The Naturalist in La Plata,' in narrating the author's observation of the natural fearlessness of all wild animals towards man, the careful research into life-habits that can be carried on where this fearlessness is not betrayed, and the susceptibility to kindness which exists amongst all the lower animals to their sovereign, man, furnishes a striking and delightful suggestion as to the method which future research should take.[1]
It is the distinctive moral relation existing in the plane of animal life that makes our connection with the organic world a different and more comprehensive relation than that which exists with inorganic Nature. It places research in the biological sciences on a different plane from study of the physical sciences.
Therefore, whilst it would be folly for ordinary people to criticise the methods of experts in physical science, it would be dastardly dereliction of duty not to consider the methods employed in biological science.
The subject of experimentation upon the lower animals having two aspects—an ethical and an intellectual one—the medical profession will be wise to welcome all honest and kindly criticism and suggestion in the most difficult of all studies, viz., the study of life. It must be recognised that the people are absolutely in their right in refusing to submit to dictation in what concerns their relation to animal life, of which they are the responsible head.
- ↑ This sound method is well exemplified in the writings of the French naturalist Le Roy.