Home>Issue No. 136 Arts and Societies now available
23 February 2026
Issue No. 136 Arts and Societies now available
# 136 | Alain Prochiantz | The diurnal and the nocturnal
A useful lesson from neurobiologist Alain Prochiantz
The neurobiologist Alain Prochiantz gives us here a useful lesson. He reminds us that it is not only in art that one is alone and confronted with intuition and danger. He worries about a current organization of scientific production that favors safety over risk-taking, speed over long term, quantity over quality. Drawing on his experience in science as well as in his role as administrator of the Collège de France, he thus prescribes, like Claude Bernard, to “throw oneself across fields,” even if it is more secure to “follow and dig the groove”. Dare we must!
Laurence Bertrand Dorléac et Thibault Boulvain
Alain Prochiantz is a professor at the Collège de France. Administrator of the Collège de France (2015-2019).