We are curious creatures. Ever since humans wandered this earth, curiosity has been their closest friend, driving them to discover the world around them, which consequently drove their scientific and technological advancement. If the “first” human wasn’t so curious to experiment with wood, we wouldn’t have discovered fire. If the falling apple didn’t ignite Newton’s curiosity, he wouldn’t have even bothered to dedicate his life to knowing why that happened and coming up with his laws of motion and gravitation. If Einstein wasn’t curious enough, we wouldn’t have his theory of relativity, a cornerstone of modern physics.
Intelligence, curiosity’s sibling, seems to complete the picture. Newton’s and Einstein’s curious minds would have probably led them nowhere if it weren’t for their intelligent minds. It becomes apparent that curiosity and intelligence must work hand in hand for the mind to succeed; curiosity is the stimulus for the intelligent mind. In other words, a senseless intelligent mind is as useless as a curious unintelligent one.
As tempting as it might be to accept the above formula, it falls short in encompassing the entire process of scientific discovery, which often has much more to it than just curiosity and intelligence. . In fact, there isn’t really an absolute formula. However, there certainly are more elaborate ones that better represent reality, as the following:
Have you ever searched a supposedly empty bag or pocket only to find money? If yes, then you’ve experienced a serendipitous event. Serendipity, according to Merriam-Webster, is “luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for.” Serendipity is a subset of luck, the latter which also contains the onset of unexpected unfortunate events. Putting that in the context of scientific discoveries, serendipity occurs when a scientist finds unexpected yet very remarkable results, by mistake, while doing an experiment.
“Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse” (Heraclitus)
There are many scientific discoveries throughout history which wouldn’t have existed without serendipity.
- One famous example is the discovery of Penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Penicillin was the first antibiotic discovered by human beings, rendering lots of possibly fatal bacterial infections a mere inconvenience. Fleming had been working with bacteria-containing petri-dishes when he randomly found that one of his petri-dishes had some fungus mold growing on it. Instead of discarding the sample, Fleming, guided by his curious mind, inspected the petri-dish further and realized that there was no bacterial growth present around the mold. His intelligent mind now took control to find an answer to this new observation, which consequently led to the discovery of penicillin.
- Another famous example is the discovery of what we know today as the microwave oven. The physicist Percy LeBaron Spencer was working with magnetrons (an instrument that moves electrons under the influence of a magnetic field). One day he was working with the magnetron while having a chocolate bar in his pocket and he realized that it melted. Once again, instead of disregarding the incident, his curious mind kicked in as he speculated that the magnetron might have something to do with the melting of the chocolate bar. Having that in mind, he started placing various foods such as popcorn and eggs in front of the magnetron and observing them closely. After being convinced that the magnetron was heating and cooking the food, his intelligent mind took charge in helping him build the microwave oven.
Other accidental scientific discoveries include the discovery of cisplatin (a chemotherapy drug), lysozyme (an antibacterial enzyme), sucralose & saccharin, the Davisson-Germer experiment, Viagra, etc. In reality, many scientific discoveries are due to serendipity and chance. Scientific publications often start with someone messing up something during the experiment, which leads to new and unexpected observations that turn out to be significant enough to document and publish. Psychologist Kevin Dunbar estimates that between 30% and 50% of all scientific discoveries are accidental in some sense. Thus, it would probably be correct to assume that serendipity often fuels curiosity and intelligence, as seen in the green arrow below:
It is important to acknowledge, however, that serendipity would mean nothing without the presence of curiosity and intelligence. Fleming and Spencer were indeed lucky with their discoveries, but they would have never reached these breakthrough conclusions without them examining these accidental events, realizing that they were special, and figuring out how to proceed; their minds made sense of a rather senseless event.
Although it is true that serendipity paves the way for curiosity and intelligence, the opposite is also true: a curious and intelligent mind is always observing the world around it, always preparing it to catch any peculiar event in the environment. Thus, it is really important to acknowledge that curiosity and intelligence can sometimes fuel serendipity, which is represented by the blue arrow above. Serendipity on one hand and curiosity & intelligence on the other form a cycle of positive feedback, where either one can positively influence or make better use of the other. Louis Pasteur couldn’t have said it more beautifully:
“Chance favors only the prepared mind”
As much as acknowledging the role of serendipity in scientific discovery is important, acknowledging context is also essential. Imagine picking up Newton from his time in the 17th century and placing him in the past where basic mathematics and physics haven’t been developed yet. Would he be able to discover the same laws? Back then, when humans knew much less about the universe around them, Newton would have had to discover the laws of mathematics first, which (in reality) took hundreds and thousands of years to develop, in order for him to finally make sense of the falling apple. The same thing would have happened with Einstein, or any other major scientist ever known. A more modern example would be regarding the existence of the only-recent massive particle accelerators, which stretched scientists’ limits of exploration and experimentation in quantum and particle physics and consequently enabled them to test some of science’s most modern hypotheses and theories; this simply wouldn’t have been possible a decade or two ago. In a similar sense, what might seem as an impossible experiment today might become merely rudimentary a few decades from now. This reiterates the importance of context in scientific discoveries and emphasizes on the concept that scientific knowledge builds on itself and is ever growing and developing.
Taking a quick look at the above figure, it’s important to notice how anything in science builds on previous discoveries/theories (in other words, previous knowledge) and how it will inherently have further studies/laws/theories be built on it in the future. In other words, unless a new proposed scientific study is reimagining the origins of everything we know in science, it will be building on some kind of scientific tower made of previous discoveries and theories.
In some cases, unfortunately, context can hinder scientific discovery, or favor a certain group of people in the scientific scene. Being a woman, for example, in the past directly and indirectly disfavored, discouraged and even prevented one from utilizing their curious and intelligent minds to their full potential. In a way, humanity was and still is actively hindering and slowing down its scientific development by directly and/or indirectly limiting its resources to specific portions of its population.
Most scientific discoveries, thus, are the result of curiosity, intelligence, serendipity, previous knowledge, and context. Next time you fail in an experiment or break a beaker, keep in mind that that failure might exactly be what you need to succeed.
Edited by Mohamad Wehbe