Quotes from John M. Barry

Indeed, methodology matters more than anything else.

the prevailing paradigm tends to freeze progress

finally fade away in both the United States and the world. It did not disappear.

The chief enemy of progress, ironically, became pure reason.

The greatest challenge of science, its art, lies in asking an important question and framing it in a way that allows it to be broken into manageable pieces, into experiments that can be conducted that ultimately lead to answers. To do this requires a certain kind of genius, one that probes vertically and sees horizontally.

Horizontal vision allows someone to assimilate and weave together seemingly unconnected bits of information. It allows an investigator to see what others do not see, and to make leaps of connectivity and creativity. Probing vertically, going deeper and deeper into something, creates new information. Sometimes what one finds will shine brilliantly enough to illuminate the whole world.

Those in power, historians have observed, often sought security in imposing order, which gave them some feeling of control, some feeling that the world still made sense.

Nothing in science is as damning as the inability of an outside experimenter to reproduce results.

Paracelsus declared he would investigate nature "not by following that which those of old taught, but by our own observation of nature, confirmed by . . . experiment and by reasoning thereon.

first great collision between a natural force and a society that included individuals who refused either to submit to that force or to simply call upon divine intervention to

As the Hopkins medical school was opening, American theological schools enjoyed endowments of $18 million, while medical school endowments totaled $500,000. The difference in financial support as well as educational systems largely explained why Europeans had achieved the bulk of medical advances.

Public health experts monitor this drift and each year adjust the flu vaccine to try to keep pace. But they will never be able to match up perfectly, because even if they predict the direction of mutation, the fact that influenza viruses exist as mutating swarms means some will always be different enough to evade both the vaccine and the immune system.

In fact, biology is chaos. Biological systems are the product not of logic but of evolution, an inelegant process.

conditions such as these, terror follows fear.

helped lead to a new conception of disease as something with an identity of its own, an objective existence.

The Los Angeles public health director said, "If ordinary precautions are observed there is no cause for alarm." Forty-eight hours later he closed all places of public gatherings, including schools, churches, and theaters.

In 1880 Pasteur—who observed, "Chance favors the prepared mind"—

This disease is no joke, to be made light of, but a terrible calamity pg 36

There was no trust, no trust, and without trust all human relations were breaking down.

But as Camus knew, evil and crises do not make all men rise above themselves. Crises only make them discover themselves. And some discover a less inspiring humanity.

Avery was attacking the most fundamental questions of immunology and, ultimately, genetics. From each failed experiment he learned, perhaps not much but something. And what he was learning went beyond how to fine-tune an experiment. What he was learning from his failures had large ramifications that applied to entire fields of knowledge. One could argue that none of Avery's experiments failed.

This answer involves not simply academic pursuits; it affects how a society governs itself, its structure, how its citizens live. If a society does set Goethe's "Word . . . supremely high," if it believes that it knows the truth and that it need not question its beliefs, then that society is more likely to enforce rigid decrees, and less likely to change. If it leaves room for doubt about the truth, it is more likely to be free and

Federal, municipal, and state courts closed. Giant placards everywhere warned the public to avoid crowds and use handkerchiefs when sneezing or coughing. Other placards read "Spitting equals death." People who spat on the street were arrested—sixty in a single day.

Historians with virtual unanimity agree that the harshness toward Germany of the Paris peace treaty helped create the economic hardship, nationalistic reaction, and political chaos that fostered the rise of Adolf Hitler.