Plans For Science Congress

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31360, 4 May 1967, Page 16

Plans For Science Congress

The fortieth congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science will be held in Christchurch from January 24 to 31.

More than 2000 scientific workers and scholars, including at least 500 from Australia and others from overseas, are expected to attend. The objectives of the association are the advancement of knowledge and the promotion of a spirit of co-opera-tion among scientists and scholars, and those interested in science and scholarship generally, especially in Australia and New Zealand. The president of the congress will be Professor Sir John Crawford, director and professor of economics, school of Pacific studies, Australian National University, Canberra. He has held this appointment since 1960. Professor Crawford is also fiscal adviser to the univer-

sity. He was a research fellow of the University of Sydney from 1933 to 1935 when he was appointed a parttime lecturer in agricultural economics. He was economic adviser to the Rural Bank of New South Wales from 1935 to 1946, and the director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Agricultural Economics from 1946 to 1950. From 1950 to 1956 Professor Crawford was secretary to the Department of Commerce and Agriculture, and then secretary to the Department of Trade until 1960 when he resigned from the Civil Service. From 1962 to 1964 he was vicechairman of the Commonwealth Committee of Economic Enquiry, and a member of the World Bank Economic Mission to India from 1964 to 1965. The chairman of the local organising committee will be Professor R. H. M. Langer, of the department of plant science, Lincoln College. A tentative programme incorporating 16 sections has been prepared and published

in the first congress circular, and contributions have been invited on the topics listed. The circular says that no section regards the listed topics as exclusive, and each would be pleased to consider papers on any subject within its scope.

The sections are mathematics, physics and astronomy including optometry, chemistry, geology, zoology, history, anthropoloy, economics, engineering and architecture, microbiology, epidemiology and experimental medicine, education and psychology, agriculture, forestry and horticulture, veterinary science, botany, biochemistry, physiology and nutrition, pharmaceutical science, and geography and oceanography. Three major interdisciplinary symposia are proposed for the congress. They are “Economic and cultural changes in the South-west Pacific,” “Australian-New Zealand Relations,” and “Feed-back mechanisms in physical, biological and social science.”

Five sessions will also be held for interested senior secondary school pupils. Three of the sessions will be lectures by visiting speakers, the fourth will be lecture demonstrations given by selected senior pupils, and the fifth session will take the form of a conversazione with contributions by selected pupils and will cover the school sciences. Fifteen thousand circulars have been distributed, including 7000 to Australia. They have been sent to universities, government departments, teachers’ colleges, medical societies, independent research organisations and farming institutions. Enrolment forms and details of accommodation and excursions are included.

Hospital Closure.—The Minister of Health (Mr McKay) will investigate the Taranaki Hospital Board's decision to close the eight-bed Inglewood Maternity Hospital as an economy measure.—(P.A.)