Aesthetics and the individual in the practice of medical research

Journal/Book: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 1991; 84: 147-50.

Abstract: The strict methodology of science is often found wanting when applied to the study of human behaviour. This has stimulated calls for innovation in medical research. The continuing problems of chronic illness and human suffering urge us to go beyond our partisan beliefs and look again at how we know as well as what we know. This is literally the art of "re-search" - to look again. It is vital that we pursue academic rigour in our experimentation. But not by burying our haeds in the sand. Rigour without imagination leads to stagnation, just as imagination alone leads to anarchy. Modern clinical research can combine the two. Our intellectual endeavours should be astute enough to see that science can accomodate multiple viewpoints and search for the reconciliation of difference within the scientific and the aesthetic.

Keyword(s): research, methodology, statistics, aesthetics.

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