- Linus Pauling
Advance in civilization has come about, and continues to come about, through two parallel pathways which are in most cases unrelated and often antagonistic.
The first path is that of the searchers.
Searchers are usually people who are deeply concerned with a problem and deeply disturbed with the results, lack of results, or even the harm being done by those practicing in the field with which they are concerned.
Searchers are therefore usually considered "outsiders" in the field. Often such discoverers are indeed outsiders and made their discoveries precisely because they were outsiders. That is to say, they didn't know what could not be done.
Both Raymond Dart and Linus Pauling present themselves to mind and provide an amusing juxtaposition. Raymond Dart was an outsider because he was a physician in a field not related to disease, while Linus Pauling was an outsider because he was not a physician in a field that was related to disease.
Being the giants that they are, neither of them need comfort. But if they did, they could find comfort in the fact that had Dart been an anthropologist and had Pauling been a physician, they would still have been seen as "outsiders" simply because they were saying things that their respective fields did not wish to hear, as were Ignatius Semmelweis, Temple Fay, and too many others.
- Raymond Dart
The searcher is characterized by the fact that he or she:
1. is deeply concerned about something;
2. tends to see things in an unconventional way;
3. tends to be extremely practical as to results;
4. tends to be extremely pig-headed;
5. tends to be extremely clear-sighted;
6. tends to be extremely courageous;
7. is not impressed either one way or another with the fact that he or she stands virtually alone.
The second pathway necessary for advances in civilization is the pathway by which the discoveries of the searchers are put into general use.
This pathway is most often controlled by the professional groups who see themselves as the sole proprietors of the truth within the field. They are the defenders of the status quo rather than those responsible for moving the field forward.
Because of this disparity in objective, those people who defend the status quo are almost invariably opposite in type, personality, methods, and objective from the searchers.
For this reason there is almost invariably a time lag between the discovery and general use of the result of the discovery.
We can measure the intelligence, knowledge, courage, security, honesty, and dedication of a field of human endeavor by the time lag that occurs between discovery and the general use of the discovery.
The more intelligent, knowledgeable, courageous, secure, honest, and dedicated a field is, the shorter is the time between discovery and its general use. I believe that the space program, with its professional society as NASA, is a good example of a field not yet old enough to have grown calloused in either intelligence or morals which, as a result, puts new discoveries into use relatively quickly.
The less intelligent, knowledgeable, courageous, secure, honest, and dedicated a field is, the longer time it takes to put discoveries into practice.
The strength of the discoverer lies in his insight, his ability to see the truth through the fog of mystery, or even the untruth that surrounds it.
The vulnerability of the searcher, perhaps even his weakness, lies precisely in his strength.
Precisely because he sees so clearly through the fog of tradition, professionalism, and long-held beliefs, he is likely to see and to know positively the real truth long before he is able to prove it.
Because such truth is so obvious to the searcher and because such discoveries are almost invariably able to result in advancing true civilization (which is to say better living through such discoveries) or even the sustaining of life itself, the discoverer is very likely to wish to see his discovery put into use as quickly as he knows it is true and before it is provable to people who do not share his clarity of vision or even perhaps the purity of his objective.
Enter the researcher.
Researchers have in common with other human beings, including searchers, that they range from brilliant and unrelentingly honest to stupid and unrelentingly dishonest.
Because they range from brilliant and honest to stupid and dishonest, they are used by professional groups to hasten civilization or to retard it, depending upon the honesty and objectives of the professional group using them.
The professional groups which are honest and which wish to move civilization ahead use the most brilliant and honest researchers to prove the truth of the new discovery as quickly as possible so it may be used to advance civilization.
The professional groups which are dishonest and which wish to maintain the status quo use the most stupid and dishonest researchers to quibble forever as to what might happen psychologically to a number of angels who had been crowded together in order to dance on the head of a pin, and thus to hold back, by endless quibble, the sun rising on tomorrow.
The Institutes has a bulletin board entitled "Newly Discovered Facts Which We Have Been Teaching Parents For Twenty Years Or More." Its score of clippings testifies to a number of things, and chief among them is the fact that the staff of The Institutes is composed of searchers who operate on pennies and who create a reality which operates roughly a quarter of' a century ahead of some very expensive researchers.
by Glenn Doman, Founder of the Institutes
