CHAPTER 1
FROM ORDER TO DISORDER
5 mins. John enters and goes into his office. He says something veryquickly about having made a bad mistake. He had sent the review of apaper.... The rest of the sentence is inaudible.
5 mins. 30 secs. Barbara enters. She asks Spencer what kind of solvent toput on the column. Spencer answers from his office. Barbara leaves and goesto the bench.
5 mins. 35 secs. Jane comes in and asks Spencer: "When you prepare forI. V. with morphine, is it in saline or in water?" Spencer, apparently writing athis desk, answers from his office. Jane leaves.
6 mins. 15 secs. Wilson enters and looks into a number of offices, trying togather people together for a staff meeting. He receives vague promises. "It's aquestion of four thousand bucks which has to be resolved in the next twominutes, at most." He leaves for the lobby.
6 mins. 20 secs. Bill comes from the chemistry section and gives Spencer athin vial: "Here are your two hundred micrograms, remember to put this codenumber on the book," and he points to the label. He leaves the room.
Long silence. The library is empty. Some write in their offices, some workby windows in the brighly lit bench space. The staccato noise of typewritingcan be heard from the lobby.
9 mins. Julius comes in eating an apple and perusing a copy of Nature.
9 mins. 10 secs. Julie comes in from the chemistry section, sits down on thetable, unfolds the computer sheets she was carrying, and begins to fill in asheet of paper. Spencer emerges from his office, looks over her shoulder andsays: "hmm, looks nice." He then disappears into John's office with a fewpages of draft.
9 mins. 20 secs. A secretary comes in from the lobby and places a newlytyped draft on John's desk. She and John briefly exchange remarks aboutdeadlines.
9 mins. 30 secs. Immediately following her, Rose, the inventory assistant,arrives to tell John that a device he wants to buy will cost three hundreddollars. They talk in John's office and laugh. She leaves.
Silence again.
10 mins. John screams from his office: "Hey Spencer, do you know of anyclinical group reporting production of SS in tumour cells?" Spencer yells backfrom his office: "I read that in the abstracts of the Asilomar conference, it waspresented as a well-known fact." John: "What was the evidence for that?"Spencer: "Well, they got an increase in ... and concluded it was due to SS.Maybe, I'm not sure they directly tested biological activities, I'm not sure."John: "Why don't you try it on next Monday's bioassay?"
10 mins. 55 secs. Bill and Mary come in suddenly. They are at the end of adiscussion. "I don't believe this paper," says Bill. "No, it's so badly written.You see, it must have been written by an M.D." They look at Spencer andlaugh. . . (excerpt from observer's notes).
Every morning, workers walk into the laboratory carrying their lunches inbrown paper bags. Technicians immediately begin preparing assays, settingup surgical tables and weighing chemicals. They harvest data from counterswhich have been working overnight. Secretaries sit at typewriters and beginrecorrecting manuscripts which are inevitably late for their publicationdeadlines. The staff, some of whom have arrived earlier, enter the office areaone by one and briefly exchange information on what is to be done during theday. After a while they leave for their benches. Caretakers and other workersdeliver shipments of animals, fresh chemicals and piles of mail. The total workeffort is said to be guided by an invisible field, or more particularly, by apuzzle, the nature of which has already been decided upon and which may besolved today. Both the buildings in which these people work and their careersare safeguarded by the Institute. Thus, cheques of taxpayers' money arriveperiodically, by courtesy of the N.I.H., to pay bills and salaries. Futurelectures and meetings are at the forefront of people's minds. Every ten minutesor so, there is a telephone call for one of the staff from a colleague, an editor, orsome official. There are conversations, discussions, and arguments at thebenches: "Why don't you try that?" Diagrams are scribbled on blackboards.Large numbers of computers spill out masses of print-out. Lengthy data sheetsaccumulate on desks next to copies of articles scribbled on by colleagues.
By the end of the day, mail has been dispatched together with manuscripts,preprints, and samples of rare and expensive substances packed in dry ice.Technicians leave. The atmosphere becomes more relaxed and nobody runsanymore. There are jokes in the lobby. One thousand dollars has been spenttoday. A few slides, like Chinese idiograms, have been added to the stockpile;one character has been deciphered, a miniscule, invisible increment. Minutehints have dawned. One or two statements have seen their credibility increase(or decrease) a few points, rather like the daily Dow Jones Industrial Average.Perhaps most of today's experiments were bungled, or are leading theirproponents up a blind alley. Perhaps a few ideas have become knottedtogether more tightly.
A Philippino cleaner wipes the floor and empties the trash cans. It has beena normal working day. Now the place is empty, except for the lone figure of anobserver. He silently ponders what he has seen with a mild sense ofbewilderment ... (Observer's Story).
Since the turn of the century, scores of men and women havepenetrated deep forests, lived in hostile climates, and weatheredhostility, boredom, and disease in order to gather the remnants of so-calledprimitive societies. By contrast to the frequency of theseanthropological excursions, relatively few attempts have been made topenetrate the intimacy of life among tribes which are much nearer athand. This is perhaps surprising in view of the reception andimportance attached...
