John M. Barry

Another explanation for the failure of logic and observation alone to advance medicine is that unlike, say, physics, which uses a form of logic – mathematics – as its natural language, biology does not lend itself to logic. Leo Szilard, a prominent physicist, made this point when he complained that after switching from physics to biology he never had a peaceful bath again. As a physicist he would soak in the warmth of a bathtub and contemplate a problem, turn it in his mind, reason his way through it. But once he became a biologist, he constantly had to climb out of the bathtub to look up a fact.


Another explanation for the failure of logic and observation alone to advance medicine is that unlike, say, physics, which uses a form of logic – mathematics – as its natural language, biology does not lend itself to logic. Leo Szilard, a prominent physicist, made this point when he complained that after switching from physics to biology he never had a peaceful bath again. As a physicist he would soak in the warmth of a bathtub and contemplate a problem, turn it in his mind, reason his way through it. But once he became a biologist, he constantly had to climb out of the bathtub to look up a fact.

– John M. Barry –

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

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