Science Quote by Sidney Altman

A single, almost sheepish clause dismantles the myth of the linear “Eureka” hunt. Altman’s “neither of our research groups set out in search of RNA catalysis” isn’t just a factual correction; it’s a quiet rebuke to the tidy narratives we demand from science. The word “set out” matters: it evokes a quest story, a deliberate expedition toward a known treasure. Altman refuses that framing. What he’s doing is repositioning discovery as something that happens when skilled people follow anomalies rather than scripts.

The “Furthermore” is telling, too. It signals he’s answering an implied charge: that the discovery of catalytic RNA was a targeted, almost inevitable outcome. By adding “neither,” Altman widens the point beyond his own lab and gestures at the broader scientific ecosystem - including Thomas Cech’s parallel work - as a reminder that this breakthrough emerged from converging lines of curiosity, technique, and stubborn attention to results that didn’t behave.

Context sharpens the subtext. RNA catalysis helped crack open the central dogma’s cultural authority, not by overthrowing it with rhetoric, but by forcing biology to admit an inconvenient fact: RNA could be actor, not just messenger. Altman’s understated phrasing keeps the emphasis where he wants it - on method and contingency, not heroism. It’s also a subtle defense of basic research: fund the questions that seem merely interesting, because history’s most disruptive answers often arrive disguised as lab trouble.