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Often outside the scientific enterprise as a sober, but we see it inside the people as the most romantic of all calls. The two viewpoints are correct. Romance, adhere to the process of scientific discovery, hard work and plain living, to be responsible for verification.           Roads to Discovery           Outsiders often regard science as a sober enterprise, but we who are inside see it as the most romantic of all callings. Both views are right. The romance adheres to the processes of scientific discovery, the sobriety to the responsibility of verification.   Histories of science put the spotlight on discovery. Everyone knows by what accident Fleming discovered penicillin, but only specialists can tell us much about how that discovery was subsequently put to the test. Everyone knows of Kekule's dream of the benzene ring, but only chemists can tell us why the structure of that molecule was problematic, and how and when it was finally decided that the problem had been solved. The story of scientific progress reaches its periodic climaxes at the moments of discovery; verification is the essential but not very glamorous aftermath - the sorting out of facts that comes after the tale's denouement and tells us the matters worked out all right (if only for a while, as in the story of phlogiston).   The philosophy of science has taken a very different tack than the discipline of the history of science. In the philosophy of science, all the emphasis is on verification, on how we can tell the true gold of scientific law from the fool's gold of untested fantasy. In fact, it is still the majority view among philosophers of science that only verification is a proper subject of inquiry, that nothing of philosophical interest can be said about the process of discovery.   ...But we believe that science is also poetry, and - perhaps even more heretical - that discovery has its reasons, as poetry does. However romantic and heroic we find the moment of discovery, we cannot believe either that the events leading up to that moment are entirely random and chaotic or that they require genius that can be understood only by congenial minds. We believe that finding order in the world must itself be a process impregnated with purpose and reason. We believe that the process of discovery can be described and modeled, and that there are better and worse routes to discovery - more or less efficient paths.   ...Whether there is method in discovery is a question whose answer is open to scientific study.             —Pat Langley, Herbert A. Simon, Gary L Bradshaw, and Jan M. Zytkow, Scientific Discovery, Readings in Philosophy and Cognitive Science             Indexes/04