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==== Pure and Applied Science ====

==== Pure and Applied Science ====

If Henry Rearden makes one kind of mistake by splitting mind from body, [[Robert Stadler]] makes another. He believes that the best minds should stand above the "mundane" concerns that are the province of engineers. Thus when Dagny Taggart describes to him the prototype of an [[John Galt#|The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]], Stadler wonders aloud why the mind that could create such a motor is not involved in "pure" research.

If Henry Rearden makes one kind of mistake by splitting mind from body, [[Robert Stadler]] makes another. He believes that the best minds should stand above the "mundane" concerns that are the province of engineers. Thus when Dagny Taggart describes to him the prototype of an [[John Galt#The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]], Stadler wonders aloud why the mind that could create such a motor is not involved in "pure" research.

The very terminology of "pure" and "applied" science illustrates this form of the mind-body dichotomy in real life. The full name of almost any school or department of engineering is "school (or department) of engineering ''and applied science.''" And in fact, practical inventions rarely receive the highest honor that organized science can bestow, the [[Nobel Prize]], unless then have a [[medicine|medical]] application. Thus perhaps organized science discards the mind-body dichotomy when an invention might help save a life. For example, the award of the Nobel Prize in Biology to Solomon Bernson and Rosalind Yalow for their development of [[radioimmunoassay]] techniques was a rare event. Furthermore, such a practical invention in a field other than medicine will wait for years before it finds practical application. The [[laser]], for example, was first built in 1960 but did not find an out-of-the-laboratory application until 1965, when the [[Western Electric]] company first used lasers to pierce industrial [[diamond]]s.

The very terminology of "pure" and "applied" science illustrates this form of the mind-body dichotomy in real life. The full name of almost any school or department of engineering is "school (or department) of engineering ''and applied science.''" And in fact, practical inventions rarely receive the highest honor that organized science can bestow, the [[Nobel Prize]], unless then have a [[medicine|medical]] application. Thus perhaps organized science discards the mind-body dichotomy when an invention might help save a life. For example, the award of the Nobel Prize in Biology to Solomon Bernson and Rosalind Yalow for their development of [[radioimmunoassay]] techniques was a rare event. Furthermore, such a practical invention in a field other than medicine will wait for years before it finds practical application. The [[laser]], for example, was first built in 1960 but did not find an out-of-the-laboratory application until 1965, when the [[Western Electric]] company first used lasers to pierce industrial [[diamond]]s.