Elegant Science

Elegance is a prized quality in science that is associated with simplicity and explanatory power. This essay considers the qualities that make a scientific model, experiment, method, or theory “elegant,” with a focus on the life sciences. We propose a definition of elegance that includes clarity, cl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Casadevall, Arturo, Fang, Ferric C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2018
Materias:
Editorial
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821082/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29463650
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00043-18
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author Casadevall, Arturo
Fang, Ferric C.
author_facet Casadevall, Arturo
Fang, Ferric C.
author_sort Casadevall, Arturo
collection PubMed
description Elegance is a prized quality in science that is associated with simplicity and explanatory power. This essay considers the qualities that make a scientific model, experiment, method, or theory “elegant,” with a focus on the life sciences. We propose a definition of elegance that includes clarity, cleverness, correctness, explanatory power, parsimony, and beauty. The pursuit of elegance can improve the quality of science, but elegance must be pursued with caution, as the truth is sometimes inelegant.
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spelling pubmed-58210822018-03-05 Elegant Science Casadevall, Arturo Fang, Ferric C. mBio Editorial Elegance is a prized quality in science that is associated with simplicity and explanatory power. This essay considers the qualities that make a scientific model, experiment, method, or theory “elegant,” with a focus on the life sciences. We propose a definition of elegance that includes clarity, cleverness, correctness, explanatory power, parsimony, and beauty. The pursuit of elegance can improve the quality of science, but elegance must be pursued with caution, as the truth is sometimes inelegant. American Society for Microbiology 2018-02-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5821082/ /pubmed/29463650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00043-18 Text en Copyright © 2018 Casadevall and Fang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Editorial
Casadevall, Arturo
Fang, Ferric C.
Elegant Science
title Elegant Science
title_full Elegant Science
title_fullStr Elegant Science
title_full_unstemmed Elegant Science
title_short Elegant Science
title_sort elegant science
topic Editorial
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821082/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29463650
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00043-18
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