Bournagain

Had a fascinating session with one of my students yesterday – a doctor. We were discussing a podcast on advances in medical research, and he was explaining how some of the most important discoveries in medicine have been accidental. He is sceptical about the idea that to that advances in medical research are held up by lack of funding, transdisciplinary studies, or simply the lack of a culture of research in the surgical area (the main arguments of the podcast). He also feels that medical breakthroughs are not discovered at conferences, colloquiums, or formal meetings to discuss research – gatherings which, in his experience, frequently degenerate into arguments between two parties, neither of which has the answers.

Apparently it is far from uncommon for major medical breakthroughs to be the result of failed experiments – “failed” in the sense that they contradicted the hypothesis that led to the experiment. Sometimes these “failures” can unlock secrets in areas completely unrelated to the object of the research. My client gave the example of how an experiment to change the colour of petunia plants led to a breakthrough in the treatement of cancer. He maintains that the secret of being a good scientist is to not throw out the results of “failed” experiments, but to study the failures in an attempt to understand why the experiment produced such results.

I loved the idea that major breakthroughs can be discovered by accident, unplanned and unexpected. “It’s not about concentrating the means of power and money, but about just letting the guy get on with the research he wants to do”, said my client. I understood that it’s about setting capable people free to follow their hunches and instincts, and waiting to see what might come up. This goes along with another concept I have come across lately – they idea that we are moving from an information age into an inspiration age. The basic idea as I have understood it is that the vast amounts of information we are currently swimming in will expand beyond our capacity to sort through, and knowledge of information will no longer be a realistic basis for intelligence. The real “geniuses” of the future will not be those who have vast knowledge, but rather those who have learnt to tap into an intelligence that is higher than their own, into inspiration. Jesus understood this when he explained “he did nothing on his own, but only that which he saw his Father doing”.

My student (seems odd to be calling a medical expert “my student”) also spoke about his fondness for the application of chaos theory to a variety of fields, not just the medical (a theory originally pioneered by the French). I’m not very familiar with this theory, other than the fact it sounds like something that would help my wife understand the state of my desk (or under the bed, for that matter). It sounds like fun, though – chaos is all around us, and like the untidy reverse side of a tapestry, conceals beauty and order which would astound us if we could just apprehend it.