In science, "there's a lot of preference for silence these days rather than disagreement," says Matteo Carandini, scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco. "I would rather have a conversation." Take the debate over how to study visual processing: Carandini believes that it is necessary to use simple stimuli, while others argue that more complex natural images should be used. He writes on the subject on
Edward Spack is senior director of the PharmaSTART program and director of biosciences business development at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. On
Adam Marcus...