Analysis Of The Great Influenza By John Barry

In a passage from The Great Influenza, author John M. Barry writes about what it is like to be a scientist. He describes scientists as pioneers and uses that to get across his idea. The author states that being a scientist is brave and uses metaphor, the motif of an explorer, and logos to prove his point. In the start of the passage, the author makes the point that to be a scientist is to be uncertain. “A scientist must accept the fact that all his or her work, even beliefs, may break apart upon the sharp edge of a single laboratory finding” (Line 14). Science is about finding out the truth. One cannot do that if he is held back by a sacred belief. Science is brave in this respect because the scientist might find out that how he lives his life is wrong. Science is about being uncertain because nothing is absolute. Most scientists used to hold that Newton’s Three Laws of Motions were absolutely perfect. Albert Einstein showed that Newton’s Laws where only good up to a point, and that a further explanation was required. There are no absolutes in science.

A scientist may find the next big leap in any particular field of study, but he may also find that all of his previous work might be useless and, ultimately, thrown out. John M. Barry uses the Metaphor of either finding a whole other world, that would be analogous to making a massive innovation, or falling off a cliff, finding out that your work was fruitless. In just one step, or one discovery, either a scientist will succeed or fail. There is no room for error. That reinforces the idea that scientists are brave. They are always on the edge, never knowing if they will be pioneers, or tumble off a