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Index Entry
Science: Left Hand and Right Hand Sciences:
"To adopt themselves to change has now been pronounced in Washington as ‘creativity.’ Philip Morrison, Cornell’s head of the department of nuclear physics, talks about what he calls ‘left hand’ and ‘right hand’ sciences. Right hand science deals in all the proven scientific formulas and experiments. Left hand science deals in the unknown and unproven, and the intellect, intuition, and imagination required in man to make it known.
“The great scientists were great because they dealt successfully with the unknown: They were left-behind scientists. Morrison says that we have been extending only the right-hand science, making it bigger and sharper. How could Congress justify appropriation of billions for dreams? For the billions went only for the swiftly obsoleting bigger, faster, and more incisive modifications of yesterday’s certainties.”
