What is Research?
                           _________________
 
                      Mart'in L'opez Corredoira
          Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias - C/.Via Lactea, s/n
                 E-38200 - La Laguna (Tenerife) - SPAIN
                       e-mail: martinlc@iac.es

                      (received June 10, 1997)

	I am going to take a critical look at what it means to do research. 
The point of view I express is a personal one that seeks to disturb the calm 
and complacent consciences of those who, myself included, are dedicated to 
research. You may not agree with me, but I hope that at least you will take 
what I say as an invitation to reflect and perhaps even formulate fresh points 
of view.
 
	It all began when our primary or secondary school teachers inspired us 
by telling us about the struggles and miracles of science. This did not 
impress all the pupils, but it did impress us. After all, here we are doing 
research. Our ability to solve problems that the other kids found difficult 
was a factor that sharpened our interest in the sciences. We felt a kinship 
with science and mathematics and experienced a certain ego-boosting pride, as 
if to say, `here I count for something'.
 
	As lovers of scientific knowledge, simply thinking about the great 
events in scientific history was enough to feed our intellects. We were told 
of the exploits of Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein or Bohr, who for us 
became heroes worthy of emulation.
 
	Eventually, we finished our degrees with high grades and were able at 
last to gain access to one of those `high-tech' centres where, so we were 
told, research is done. `But what exactly is it,' I ask, `that we really do?'
 
	History teaches us not to separate individual experience from general 
events. Hence, when Galileo observed the satellites of Jupiter, he was also 
demonstrating that not everything revolves around the Earth. Newton's laws 
were not formulated for the purposes of engineering applications but to reveal 
the non-teleological mechanism of our Universe. When Laplace told Napoleon 
that he had solved the system of equations which explain the motions of the 
planets without the need to invoke God, the important point was not his 
mathematical jugglings but the struggle to arrive at the truth without 
resorting to ancient mythologies. Darwin put humankind in its place within the 
animal kingdom. Etc.
 
	Changing ideas about the Universe are what drives the scientist. 
Before becoming a data collection on Nature, science was mainly devoted to 
combating superstition, the principal aim was rigorously to realize the dreams 
of Epicurus and Lucretius to overthrow the idea of the gods controlling the 
Universe, to emancipate Nature from the grip of haughty lords and dark, 
mysterious forces, to demystify the Universe and face truth head on. In other 
words, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the elevation of mankind with an 
understanding of his surrounding without needing to resort to white lies.
 
	We live in different times. Nowadays oppression does not come from 
powers making claims on behalf of divinity. The value that motivates today's 
world is called Money rather than God. The conspiracy between capitalism and 
democracy is all-consuming, their enemies having either of two destinies: be 
absorbed or be eliminated. The applied sciences have always been allied to 
capitalism; they drive technology and flood the market with products labelled 
with a price. The pure sciences or those with non-industrial applications, 
such as for the most part astronomical researches, were revised in terms of 
their driving principles; they were adapted to the needs of our times, 
absorbed. Present-day utilitarianism revolts at the idea of knowledge for its 
own sake. Even Buddhism, with its initially antimaterialist ideas, has been 
rendered into a marketable product in the book shops or in the form of courses 
on transcendental meditation. Culture has also been turned into a `cultural 
industry', to use Adorno's expression. Scientific knowledge has become a milch 
cow on which to grow fat, an industry providing jobs to some state employees 
in order to make possible for them to live with their spouses and their 
children in the welfare state.
 
	Those research ideals have been left behind. Intellectual 
restlessness, the search for truth created those colossi of knowledge who 
moved among the different fields like salmon among rapids. Today, such 
pirouettes have become impossible because knowledge has become heavy and 
sluggish. You will see an elephant skipping before you see a scientist knowing 
so many fields as our scientific forefathers did. Nowadays, a scientist has to 
specialize. Scientists have been specializing for quite a long time, but it is 
now a question of microspecialization. There are experts on cool stars, the 
Galactic bar, certain types of chemical reactions, etc. The most a scientist 
can hope to achieve is mastery of a few microspecializations, in which to 
invest their efforts or creative interests. It is hard to imagine someone 
getting into a specialization because it is his only interest, unless the 
system has made him crazy enough to believe that his topic is the centre of 
the world. This clearly is not so. Rather, it is more a case of converting the 
scientific process into an industrialized mass-production system. Everybody 
attends to his own cog so that the system runs smoothly.
 
	It is a treason to our scientific forefathers' ideals. Descartes gave 
science a sense for mankind as a search of truth in his `Rules for the 
direction of the mind', and expressed in the first rule:
 
	Thus, if somebody wants seriously to research the truth of the 
	things must not choose a peculiar science, since all of them are 
	related among themselves. Rather, he must only think about increasing 
	the natural light of reason, not in order to solve this or that 
	school's difficulty but to get an understanding about life that 
	shows us the behaviour we have to choose.
 
	And, what does the scientific industry produce? The answer depends on 
the observer. From inside, we see tons of printed paper which is not read by 
anybody except some few specialists, each one about his topic. From outside we 
get a hermetic impression, such as we said `what amazing things must this 
people be discovering!, it must be so difficult and advanced that it is not 
accesible to my level of understanding'. That is the impression which is of 
interest to give to those who pay the taxes to the state in order to 
contribute further money to research. Those who are decicated to applied 
sciences have a easiest task because they promise technological advances. The 
pure sciences -- with no application -- in order to not loose the thread of 
statal subventions, must also talk about long-term technological progress in a 
country. If it is necessary, they lie. If the technological argument does not 
work, they attempt to impress people with the knowledge content. If it is 
necessary, they exaggerate. They say that a satellite or a telescope is going 
to create a revolution in astronomy, that we are going to observe the whole 
Universe and some parts of other ones,... and then the artifact arrives and 
.... the revolution has been rather small. Perhaps they scrape something else 
about some galaxy which was not in our collection.
 
	We must not deceive ourselves. The more the history advances, the more 
difficult the achievement of a relevant truth is. The Newton's scientific 
activities during some year of his life with a notebook and a pen were more 
fruitful than that of thousands of the best actual scientist in their whole 
life with millions of dollars. It seems that there are many writtings, many 
data, ...but in the last analysis our comprehension of the nature in a global 
sense advances nearly imperceptibly. Great efforts bear less fruit.
 
	The fight for the economic power and social status promotes fights 
among specialist from different fields rather than searching `the truth' 
altogether. Astronomers ask money because they are disemboweling the cosmos 
secrets; the particle physics are disemboweling the matter secrets; the 
biologist the life secrets; ... What impatient people who wants to reveal all 
of nature's mysteries and does not want to leave anything for the next 
generations! Some data are still not totally exploited and we are thinking 
about getting the next ones. Fast!, before any others make the discovery! 
Impatience has never been typical of wise people. I know well your little 
secret: will to power. In regard to this topic, Nietzsche has made a deep 
psychological analysis of man intentions.
 
	The fight among specialists from different branches is similar to that 
for defending the lands in the medieval age. The `authorities of the matter', 
as they call themselves, are like lords of some lands who keep fervently their 
kingdom. When an intruder tries to insert his nose in a speciality which is 
not his, he will soon receive a cohort of `authorities' reading his rights. 
Generally, the lands are also fenced with a language and symbolism to be 
crossed only by experts. In some ocassions, I would say that formalisms are 
made to frighten to other people, in order to make the entrance difficult.
 
	Saying that doing research is collaborating in the peace and fecundity 
of mankind progress is slightly silly. Nations do not invest in research today 
because of beautiful phrases like the one above. Nations, like persons, look 
for prestige. A country sends its sportsmen to the Olympic games to win 
prestige, in order to get people to say: `sportman with certain nationality 
won a medal...', and then the national hymn will be played and all that. Next 
day, the newspapers publish in their pages `our sportsmen won some medals in 
...'. This `our' makes the reader feel proud to belong to his country and then 
he will like to produce for his society. In the same way, the state pays 
scientists, even non-technological ones. If they are not useful for industrial 
production, they are at least useful to produce prestige. It is very beautiful 
to find in the news: `scientist of our research centers discovered...', it 
makes the citizens believe they lives in a true country. There are meetings 
about science even in undeveloped countries, do they also want to collaborate 
for the peace and fecundity to the mankind progress while their citizens live 
on the poverty?
 
	The great spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, expressed in the 
presence of this events: `let them invent!'. This expression has more containt 
than a simple rebuff. If we are interested in knowing the truth, the way is 
not the microspecialization. Let the nations invest their efforts, their own 
pride will announce the news to the world and the ideas you were interested in 
will arrive in your ears. Of course, this position does not include neither a 
job nor a medal, only wisdom and prudence.
 
	In some place of the `The tragic sense of life', Unamuno says:
 
	Yes, yes, I see it; a huge social activity, a powerful civilization, 
	a lot of science, a lot of art, a lot of industry, a lot of morality, 
	and then, when we have filled the world with industrial wonders, with 
	large factories, with paths, with museums, with libraries, we will 
	fall down exhausted near all this, and it will be, to whom?, was the 
	man made for the science or the science for the man?
 
	That is, to whom? Perhaps, the historic moment when we must raise 
again the question about we do has already arrived. Where are we going? The 
scientific method is awfully eroded. That thing with a reason for being at the 
beginning of modern age as a promoter of positive knowledges; that later 
lights century and its enlightenment; ... all that is part of the past. Today, 
science is as crushed as the contemporary art. In words by P. K. Feyerabend in 
his `Against method':
 
	Science failed to be a variable human tool to explore and change 
	the world and rendered itself into a solid block of knowledge, 
	impermeable to human dreams, wishes and hopes.
 
	Science looses its first attractiveness, simple technical operations 
remain. Which is the thing in whose name we do research?, in the name of 
truth?, of economy?, of prestige? Science as an amusement still remains but 
even the growing pedantry and heaviness limit this.
 
	Doing research is fighting, what is any other thing the human being 
could do? Fight against powers or to get powers, that depends on us. Science 
can be a revolution or deadlocked idleness. Still waters, without pushing the 
stones along their history, tend to form bogs.
 
 
 
Recomended lectures:
____________________
 
Some lectures of the classical philosophers that I mentioned above, 
and many others that I have not cited, are always recomended, of course. 
In this journal, I have also found some interesting articles related in 
some way with the topic such as:
 
- Apostol M., 1996, `The State of the Physics', Metaphysical Review, 2(8), 7.
 
- Smith T. P., 1997, `Why are we in Physics?', Metaphysical Review, 3(6), 1.