The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1937. SCIENCE CONGRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1937. SCIENCE CONGRESS.

For the cause that lacks aeaietanee. For the wrong that need* resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that vie can do.

The growth of scientific knowledge, it has been said, always causes a corresponding growth of our ignorance. The fields of scientific investigation are now so vast and varied that no man can be intimately acquainted with even a small number of them, and only a few may venture upon a general description of the work in progress. Scientists themselves feel the need for periodical gatherings at which they may discuss together the problems they have in common, learning in outline what workers in other fields are doing or attempting, and also, through chosen spokesmen, inform the public of the relationship of scientific investigation and discovery to everyday life. The greatest of such gatherings is the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The Australian and New Zealand Association, patterned on the British, meets biennially. It has met three times in New Zealand —in 1891, 1904 and 1923. This year it is to meet again in Auckland, for the first time. Sir Josiah Stamp, who delivered the presidential address at the latest meeting of the British Association, argnevl that science has hitherto concentrated too exclusively on its more physical branches, to the damage of the social sciences. "We have spent much and long upon the science of matter,"'were his concluding words, ''and the- greater our success the greater must be our failure, unless we turn also at long last to an equal advanee in the science of man." In the "newer" countries this concentration Upon the physical sciences is perhaps inevitable, but the divisions of the forthcoming Congress indicate) that the social sciences are not neglected. In the anthropology section, in addition to papers on the Maori, there will be discussions led by prominent Australians, whose contributions will be based on knowledge acquired in Papua and New Guinea, where Australian methods of administration have earned much attention. Of popular interest, too, will be the proceedings of the history, economics, education, agriculture and geography sections. But who shall say that any one scientific subject cannot be of popular interest? The books of Sir James Jeans discovered a wider interest in astronomy than anyone had suspected. There is an increasing need, recognised at this year's' • congress of the British Association, for scientists to discuss before the public the social implications of their work. The British Assoeiation as a practice now asks each of its sections to .devote part 6£*ts" time io the social and practical problems/ which have arisen from the advances 'of its ,own particular science, and this year all the addresses and discussions which -were of ''human" rather than -of . scientific interest were grouped at the beginning of -'the programme. At the opening of the forthcoming congress the president, Sir David Rivett, will give a public address, and there will be other public lectures. The opportunity thus afforded Aucklanders and visitors to Auckland, of hearing some of the most distinguished scientists in the Commonwealth and Dominion should not be neglected, for it will not recur in Auckland for twenty years.