REFLECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC LIVES AND THE DECLINE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES IN MICROBIOLOGY

Abstract

This essay addresses the "life styles" of contemporary academic scientists in microbiology and related fields (especially molecular biology). Owing to increasing commercialism of scientific discoveries, the relentless pressure to obtain grants for research, and the typical traditional academic obligations, they apparently spend little, if any, time in exposing students to the rich history of how outstanding scientists of diverse backgrounds and personality solved important basic problems in microbiology. This is clearly manifest in current 1,000 page encyclopedic textbooks which devote minuscule space to historical perspectives. Thus, in the U.S.A. as well as other countries, we can expect a trend in many universities to emphasize "technoscience" as a major "life style" in certain biological sciences, with unknown prospects for exploration of the many basic biological phenomena that are still unsolved.