TRUE SCIENCE

[摘要] . . . Medicine . . . is a great science, for all its failings. I reject completely the conventional view which says that mathematics and physics are the true, basic sciences; that other sciences enjoy merit and intellectual vigour only to the extent that they rest on mathematics and physics. It is true that one can work "down" from medicine through pathology to genetics and cell biology, to biochemistry, to chemistry, and thence to physics and mathematics. Equally one can work "up" from biology and medicine to demography, sociology, economics, and political science. But these hierarchies represent descriptive conveniences and conventions, classifications of components in terms of size. They cannot be listings of value or of intellectual achievement. Biologists and doctors have nothing to be ashamed of in front of their colleagues in the physical sciences.

[学科分类] 儿科学