GUIDANCE WANTED

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 35, 10 August 1933, Page 13

GUIDANCE WANTED

SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY

CIVILISATION'S FUTURE

Declaring that the future of civilisation itself depended less upon tho increasing powers which scientific discoveries and their ' application had placed in tho hands of man than upon the way in which these powers were, used, Dr. E. Marsden during tho course of an address last night said that it was indeed a question of preparing democratic leadership to handle tho situation. In tho absence of adequate leadership, whether in its broadest aspect or in its narrow technical sense, science would never occupy its rightful place*'in' industry. Industry in New Zealand had suffered "too much in the past from administrators whoso deficiency in regard to a scientific outlook had rendered them incapable of maintaining /an adequate technically trained staff or of accepting an adequate and sustained programme of scientific development as a fixed charge and incorporating its results in industrial practice. The address was, given to the Economic Society, and was f ollowed_ with attention by a large and v~apyreciativo audience. Dr. Marsden remarked that it was difficult to assess the responsibility of the absence of scientific.leadership for many of the grave problems Confronting industry and society. Under the conditions of modern civilisation, the community in general, and not industry alone, was dependent upon pure and applied science for its continued progress and prosperity.. Under tho influence of modem scientific discoveries and their applications in many directions other than industry, the whole, basis of society was rapidly becoming scientific, and to, art increasing extent the problems which confronted the leaders in either industrial or national affairs involved factors which required scientific knowledge for their solution. "Scientific development of industry is an attitude more than a question of the use of professional scientists. It is a progressive development of industry on the basis of facts and proper deductions. I stress tho necessity of the scientific attitude in industry sineo we have become too prone to consider that all matters are of the nature of political or psychological rather than those of orderly scientific development, and here we strike the great difficulty of democracy—the election of the right type of leaders in our .co-operative and other industries, and where the right type is Chosen, giving them a free hand. .', ■■ "All policy must play down to the masses, and as it may truly be said that the average level of scientific education of our community is deplorably low, it is difficult to obtain sufficient acceptance of the scientific viewpoint in development, and one cannot look on scientific work as a thing apart' from large policy and administration." WHAT OP THE FUTURE? Reference was made by the speaker to factors which had militated against the idea of scientific development in industry in New Zealand, mentioning the fact that thero was little or no patent protection for research in agriculture and similar sciences.• "When one surveys the findings in genetics as related to new plants, improved breeds based on capacity production, the discoveries in regard to' nutrition, one can but feel that we are' onIthe eve of an agricultural industrial revolution with consequences in every way as serious as those in the mechanical industrial revolution of one hundred years ago," said Dr. Marsden. "The natural evolution would be to alter the- social structure of agriculture, and either large scale mass production must ensue or aome form of co-operation in production and. marketing, but we have an example of the first in tho efforts of Russia; and the second in.the1 co-operative dairying in Denmark and N,ew Zealand, but possibilities of production are enor-1 mously enhanced and with normal development there is sure to be possibilities of tremendous over-production of perishable commodities. "Does the solution lie in ordered planning of industries as ..being1 attempted in U.S.A.? It must bo international to be effective. Or does the solution lie along the' lines of producing raw materials for secondary industry, applying these scientific possibilities of increased production per acre to the production agriculturally of the raw materials to secondary industry; thus we have the possibilities of power alcohol, unfortunately remote forNew Zealand. "We have' the possibilities of cellu-lose-producing plants, but it standsout clearly that the application to agricultural production of modern pure and applied science requires complex social organisations, and we are- forced to consider the economic and social consequences of the new scientific - force placed in the hands of mankind.' Scientific workers, in particular, must face those consequences, and be increasingly concerned with the moral and social results of their work."