Article: Jacob, François. "Evolution and tinkering." (1977): 1161-116 It seems that scientists should be good at observations, experiments, but most importantly, imagination built on the patterns observed! We are often inferring processes from patterns, and during this activity, we need to bridge what we saw with the potential causes. This is not much different with imagination! But it is a special imagination. An imagination that once come up in our mind, should be tested immediately by ourselves, by previous factual evidence, by empirical knowledge, by colleagues, etc.
Here is the quotation from the article that states the importance of imagination to scientists: In the words of the physicist Jean Perrin, the heart of the problem is always "to explain the complicated visible by some simple invisible". A thunder can be viewed as a consequence of Zeus' anger or of a difference of potential between the clouds and the earth. A disease can be seen as the result of a spell cast on the patient or if an infection by a virus. In all cases, however, one watches the visible effect of some hidden cause related to the whole set of invisible forces that are supposed to run the world ... ... In the words of Peter Medawar, scientific investigation begins by the "invention of a possible world or of a tiny fraction of the world". .. For scientific thoughtm insteadm imagination is only a part of the game. At every step, it has to meet with experimentation and criticism. The best world is the one that exists and has proven to work already for a long time. Science attempts to confront the possible with the actual.
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