In today’s vastly expanded scientific enterprise, obsessed with impact factors and competition, we will need much more night science to unveil the many mysteries that remain about the workings of organisms.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of deep exploration in science beyond superficial metrics of success.
Francois Jacob highlights the growing trend in the scientific community to focus on quantifiable metrics, such as impact factors, which may overshadow the need for thorough and in-depth exploration of complex biological phenomena. He advocates for a more patient and contemplative approach to scientific inquiry, aptly termed 'night science', which encourages researchers to delve into the unknowns of organismal biology rather than getting caught up in competition and superficial achievements.
In practice
Use this quote in a scientific conference to encourage researchers to pursue long-term projects.
The game was that of continually inventing a possible world, or a piece of a possible world, and then of comparing it with the real world... a race without end... What mattered more than the answers were the questions... For me, this world of questions and the provisional, this chase after an answer that was always put off to the next day, all that was euphoric. I lived in the future... I had turned my anxiety into my profession.
Data is like garbage. You'd better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.
I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times, I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success; at others, I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience.
In any finite region of space, matter can only arrange itself in a finite number of configurations, just as a deck of cards can be arranged in only finitely many different orders. If you shuffle the deck infinitely many times, the card orderings must necessarily repeat.
A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the subatomic energy which, it is known exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn how to release it and use it for his service. The store is well nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped. There is sufficient in the Sun to maintain its output of heat for 15 billion years.
The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.
Evolution is a fact. It is the best explanation of what is known from observations. It's a theory as powerful as the theory of gravity.
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