Endocrine Abstracts

It is increasingly common for research funding bodies to ask applicants to demonstrate how the outcome of the proposed research will benefit society or the economic wellbeing of the country. This pre-supposes that the results of the research are somehow predictable and thus diminishes the importance of ‘blue skies’ or curiosity-driven research and the role played by luck or chance in major scientific discoveries. I shall describe how throughout history accidental findings, ‘hunches’ and chance encounters have led to some major discoveries. Whether or not the over-flowing bath of Archimedes or Newton’s apple falling to ground are simply anecdotal, they are linked to dramatic changes in so many branches of physics and led to numerous applications in engineering technologies. More recently, the contamination of Alexander Fleming’s bacteriological plates by fungal spores from a neighbouring laboratory leading to the development of antibiotics is a good example of the value of accidents leading to major advances. ‘Hunches’ or ‘dreams’ have also been cited as the seeds of great scientific advances. August Kekulé’s dream of a snake biting its own tail has been credited with the birth of the benzene ring and that of a major new branch of organic chemistry, without which the development of chemical dyestuffs and plastics would not have been possible. The mistake by Hideki Shirakawa’s student and his chance encounter with Alan MacDiarmid led to the development of conducting polymers in present-day electronics. Finally, it is well to consider Louis Pasteur’s statement that chance only favours the prepared minds, important roles of ‘blind alleys’ and ‘wrong ideas’, stressed by Peter Medawar and Richard Feynman, which are impossible to explain in a grant application.