ake STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
iy STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305

 

September 23, 1974

STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Department of Genetics
(415) 497-5052

Joshua Lederberg

THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE

Some time ago I asked myself what I was doing spending so much time
and effort in projects like ACME, DENDRAL, SUMEX so far from my home
specialty of cellular genetics, (And I am sure that others have asked the
same - perhaps almost as critically.)

It occurred to me that one way to answer that question was grounded
in skepticism about the efficacy of the METHOD of science as practised today.
(There is of course a substantial school of study of the philosophy of science
concerned with similar issues, but hardly at all with ameliorative applications.)
The DENDRAL project, for example, is directed at understanding and improving
the process of abducing hypotheses, the fulcrum of the enormous effort of
laboratory work. SUMEX in large part is directed at the more efficient
communication of ideas and recipes in specific fields of work connected with
medicine, to encourage the efficiencies embodied in the concept of "scientific
community". Each of us is also involved in many different ways in the shaping
of the scientific enterprise and the flow of social benefits and support, both
in our own laboratory and in the guidance of policies of the university, of
journals, of granting institutions and so on.

But I could think of no forum which mediated a collegial discussion of the
method of science from the standpoint of measures to improve it. This lunch
meeting was intended to start such a discussion; I had in mind a few figures
for whose breadth of thinking and analytical acuity I had extraordinary respect
to form the nucleus, We focus I think on the logical-speculative function and
its mechanization on the computer; we might ask about augmentation with other
areas,

Some questions I have in mind are:

1. How can we better integrate diverse sources of methodology for more
effective theory formation and testing in science? I have the feeling that
mathematical programming and operational analysis and some pure mathematics
have reworked much of the same territory as Artificial Intelligence, And we
are all well acquainted with the problems of exchanging complex algorithms
once they are identified?

2. Can we identify other areas of science that are ripe for formalization,
like organic chemistry for DENDRAL; or can we progress in the methods of
formalization, the better to exploit AI approaches in the practice of those
sciences?

LT, J. P,. KENNEDY, JR. LARORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE
THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE (continued) -2- 9/23/74

3. Can we sharpen our meta-scientific model, the better to identify
crucial points d'appui of approaches like these?

4, Should we incorporate value-oriented disciplines (economics,
ethics) to help optimize our enterprise from the standpoint of social utility?

5. What further steps should we ourselves take in pursuit of these
or other questions?