I heard a young boy interviewed on radio in connection with the recent Science Week. The boy loved science, finding it interesting and exciting. He went on: "Science is easy. You only need to use a tiny part of your brain, not like maths where you must use your whole brain." I was pleased that the boy enjoyed science but his idea that you need to use only a small part of your brain to study science is wrong. This is a common misunderstanding. The function of scientific research is to discover new knowledge about how the natural world works. This is a creative process requiring imagination and intuition. Great scientists deliberately harness the power of the imagination to help them to make scientific advances.
It is commonly assumed that scientific research is entirely a matter of logic, discipline and hard work. These are essential elements but they make up only part of the recipe required to produce ground-breaking work. In order to make quantum advances you have to be able to catapult yourself beyond the status quo, free of the conventional thinking that cannot see beyond current models. Imagination is essential here. Scientific research proceeds roughly as follows. Each scientist is interested in a particular problem. The scientist must first study all existing scientific knowledge about the problem. He/she then forms a hypothesis as to the solution to the problem.
The next step is to perform an experiment to test the hypothesis. Depending on the results, the scientist will either accept, refine or reject the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is accepted or refined, new experiments are devised to test it further, and this process continues until the hypothesis is either finally rejected or accepted as a solution to the problem. Creativity in science is mainly involved in the formulation of hypotheses. A hypothesis is the best educated guess that the scientist can make as to the solution to a problem. It must be consistent with all previous scientific observations and must be different from hypotheses previously proposed. Imagination and intuition are essential tools for generating new hypotheses.
Different parts of the brain have different functions. Verbal, number and reasoning skills are located on the left side of the brain, while insight, imagination and art-awareness are controlled by the right side. Biological organs thrive only when they are well used and become stunted and inefficient if underused. All parts of the brain need exercise, and there is work for both sides when doing scientific research.
Most people have had the experience of finding the solution to a problem after "sleeping on it". Typically, you might be wrestling with a problem late into the night. Then you decide to forget it for the time being, relax and go to bed. Not infrequently, on wakening in the morning, a solution to the problem spontaneously presents itself. Your subconscious mind worked on the problem while your conscious mind was asleep, and handed you the solution in the morning.
William Reville is a senior lecturer in biochemistry at UCC