ABSTRACT
Waksman, Selman A. . . . a new problem has arisen-namely ’planned research’ versus the ‘individual investigator’. There is place for planned research. It can take a defined body of knowledge and lay out a set of experiments which will exploit this knowledge to its foreseeable limits. It can take a set of postulates and drive them home to their logical conclusions. It can do this with exhaustive thoroughness, economy, and speed. Within its limitations, it is efficient, expeditious, and authoritative. But there is a place also and a more important place for the random investigator. The role of planned research is to consolidate ground already won; the role of the random investigator is to seek out new worlds to conquer.
