Abstract
THE importance of scientific research in the modern State no less than in industry encourages discussions from time to time as to the mechanism of discovery and the best means of encouraging it. Dr. Lampitt, for example, in a recent address on fundamental problems of the food industry, stressed the importance even in industrial research of a true spirit of inquiry, the lack of which was liable to lead to unsound work which later investigators would invalidate. In stressing the importance of the spirit in which problems are faced he had in mind chiefly, however, the importance of a critical attitude towards experimental methods and published results; he uttered a much needed warning against the tendency to assume the validity of such results and the adequacy of an experimental technique without any rigorous verification of its suitability for the particular purpose in mind.
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Discovery and Invention. Nature 133, 509–511 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133509a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133509a0