- Title Pages
- Frontispiece
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on the Translation
- Introduction: A Scientist in His Life's Project
-
1 “I Have Never in My Life Felt I Belonged in the Place Where I Lived” -
2 “Stylistically, I'm Best at Irony” -
3 “I Wanted to Study Something That Couldn't Be Used” -
4 “I Have the Feeling That Everything Around Me Is Enveloped in a Mist” -
5 “When I Look at Other Scientists … None of Them Have Wasted as Many Years as I Have” -
6 “Now I Think Nobody Can Keep Me from Becoming a Doctor” -
7 “To Be Able to Let Nature Reflect in the Depths of My Own Soul” -
8 “I Am Branded with Infidelity, and See That Open-Eyed” -
9 “Letters Are a Spiritual Spiderweb in Which You Snare the Dreaming Soul of a Woman” -
10 “The Happiness of Feeling Superior to a Lot of People” -
11 “I Think the Work Has Principal Application to Immunology” -
12 “Antibody This, Antibody That, They Weren't Really Much Interested” -
13 “These People Don't Know What They're Doing” -
14 “I Suppose I Should Do Something, Maybe an Experiment or Something” - The Selection Theory as a Personal Confession
-
15 “My Hopes and Failures Are Within Myself” -
16 “This Theory Hadn't Made Much of a Stir, So Now, What Was I to Do?” -
17 “I'd Better Make Sure I Learn a Little about Immunology” -
18 “Finally, My Precious, I Have to Be Brilliant and Make Antibodies” -
19 “Like a Log Coming Slowly to the Surface of a Lake” -
20 “I Still Think That My Original Natural Selection Theory Was Better” -
21 “Immunology Is for Me Becoming a Mostly Philosophical Subject” - Epilogue: “What Struggle to Escape”
- Abbreviations Used in Notes
- Unpublished Sources
- Bibliography
- Index
“When I Look at Other Scientists … None of Them Have Wasted as Many Years as I Have”
“When I Look at Other Scientists … None of Them Have Wasted as Many Years as I Have”
- Chapter:
- (p.52) 5 “When I Look at Other Scientists … None of Them Have Wasted as Many Years as I Have”
- Source:
- Science as Autobiography
- Author(s):
Thomas Söderqvist
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
This chapter discusses the great intellectual happening in the Danish capital, Copenhagen in 1936—the Second International Congress for the Unity of Science, held for one week in June under Jorgen Jorgensen's supervision. Maybe it was newspaper reports on the radical empiricists' discussion of problems of causality that inspired Niels Jerne to throw himself into David Hume's writings when he returned home. He also familiarized himself with Bertrand Russell, probably because of Jorgensen's introductory book on the English philosopher, published the year before. The English bacon experts, however, had remained unconvinced of the advantages of the new curing method, and so Hans Jessen began a new and larger series of tests in the Netherlands. As the summer went by, Niels became increasingly pessimistic and defeatist about the world and his situation, gradually slipping into a new phase of melancholy.
Keywords: Niels Jerne, Copenhagen, Second International Congress for the Unity of Science, Jorgen Jorgensen, causality, David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Hans Jessen
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- Title Pages
- Frontispiece
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on the Translation
- Introduction: A Scientist in His Life's Project
-
1 “I Have Never in My Life Felt I Belonged in the Place Where I Lived” -
2 “Stylistically, I'm Best at Irony” -
3 “I Wanted to Study Something That Couldn't Be Used” -
4 “I Have the Feeling That Everything Around Me Is Enveloped in a Mist” -
5 “When I Look at Other Scientists … None of Them Have Wasted as Many Years as I Have” -
6 “Now I Think Nobody Can Keep Me from Becoming a Doctor” -
7 “To Be Able to Let Nature Reflect in the Depths of My Own Soul” -
8 “I Am Branded with Infidelity, and See That Open-Eyed” -
9 “Letters Are a Spiritual Spiderweb in Which You Snare the Dreaming Soul of a Woman” -
10 “The Happiness of Feeling Superior to a Lot of People” -
11 “I Think the Work Has Principal Application to Immunology” -
12 “Antibody This, Antibody That, They Weren't Really Much Interested” -
13 “These People Don't Know What They're Doing” -
14 “I Suppose I Should Do Something, Maybe an Experiment or Something” - The Selection Theory as a Personal Confession
-
15 “My Hopes and Failures Are Within Myself” -
16 “This Theory Hadn't Made Much of a Stir, So Now, What Was I to Do?” -
17 “I'd Better Make Sure I Learn a Little about Immunology” -
18 “Finally, My Precious, I Have to Be Brilliant and Make Antibodies” -
19 “Like a Log Coming Slowly to the Surface of a Lake” -
20 “I Still Think That My Original Natural Selection Theory Was Better” -
21 “Immunology Is for Me Becoming a Mostly Philosophical Subject” - Epilogue: “What Struggle to Escape”
- Abbreviations Used in Notes
- Unpublished Sources
- Bibliography
- Index
