NECESSITY OF PEACE

Evening Star, Issue 23237, 10 April 1939, Page 13

NECESSITY OF PEACE

BIOLOGIST SAYS WAR IS SUICIDAL DR F. W. DRY’S LECTURE “ Get caught up in international rivalries, on whichever side, and you are a threat to the human race. If I were empowered to speak I should say something like this: We’ve got to quit this nonsense. The mess we are in conies from our bad biological thinking or the absence of biological thinking. But we are not just blindly helpless; we can apply our brains to the control of our destiny. Let us help one another out of this pickle. Anyway ? for my part, I propose, as far as it is possible, to undo tjie harm resulting from the bad biological thinking of my group in the past," notably the Treaty of Versailles. And whatever you may do, I shall try the effect of declining to take any part in the smashing of our species.” In these words Dr P. W. Dry, of Massey Agricultural College, summed up his conclusions from the study of the question of war and peace from the biological angle, in a lecture under Quaker auspices at Dunedin last night. Acutely aivare of the hordes of species that jiad had their day and disappeared from the face of the earth, he pointed out that our own species, and still more our modern civilisation, was threatened with extinction through its willingness to engage in modern warfare, with its rapidly increasing powers of destruction. “ Biology is ordered living species,” said Dr Dry. “If a species of animals is to prosper or survive it must fit in with its environment. As the record of the rocks shows, vast numbers of species that flourished in their time have become extinct. Some have left descendants which are an improvement on their ancestors; others, including some which in their day were lords of creation, have come to a complete dead end. We live in an up-and-down universe. Slump and complete catastrophes are apt to follow boom.

OVER-ARMED ANIMALS THAT PERISHED. “ A group of animals gains ascendancy by extreme specialisation, which makes possible big increase in numbers. Then with monotonous repetition, the bubble bursts; the group perishes. Especially striking is the extinction ot large, heavily horned animals. One explanation of their collapse is that in conditions—richer food supply for exampie—that encourage bigger-size, the horns become disproportionately large, their growth being stimulated' proportionately more than that of the rest of the body. The horns become unwieldy, so that the species finds itself in a fatally imbalanced position. “ Mankind' is running a dangerously parallel course. In some ways man s bodv is specialised, in band and brain, thanks to which bo. has made machines like steam shovels apd aeroplanes that arc extensions of his limbs, and instruments such as telescopes and l radios that are elaborate additions to bis organs of sense. With the advance of scientific knowledge the numbers of human be--invs on this planet have increased nearly fivefold in 300 years. Onr knowledge and power have increased faster and faster, but wisdom lingers. This, therefore, is a particular example of a general phenomenon—the threat of catastrophe through specialisation. “ Armaments are like the horns of monsters of bygone ages. They presage or threaten the extinction of the species, or at least the destruction of modern civilisation. It is_ easy to become indignant about this particular breach of faith or that in the dealings of rival Powers, or to get all heated up and ready to fight over some imperialistic stroke in one camp or another. Seen in biological perspective, to go to war over such matters —indeed, to go to war at all—is like coming to blows over cheating at cards in a burning house. As a biological pacifist 1 refuse to participate in the suicide of my species. CONSTRUCTION BETTER THAN SUICIDE. “ I am interested in a different sort of struggle—struggling with our environment, and thereby exercising our own nature, just as it is, constructively. I am keen on my species. I want the different varieties of man to prosper, i know bow much the species has to molest and hinder it aside from the supreme danger to which it is exposed. There arc enemy organisms, such as

yellow fever germs and bubonic plague germs, mosquitos and rats, which I deem it part of our education to discover how to kill. These are foes without. There are had rates of breeding—so high as to lead to susceptibility to disease or starvation, or so low that the population dwindles or is temporarily maintained by the, accumulation of old folks. And it is likely that in many communities there is degeneration through the higher reproductive rate of poorer stock. There is, besides, inadequate exploitation ' of our environment, partly owing to ignorance common to the whole species, but also, especially in Africa and Asia, through failure to spread and apply existing knowledge. Let any nation quit arming and devote a fraction of the resources saved to tackling the problems just listed, and especially to enriching human lives now at a primitive level of culture. Would not that be a great deal better than hustling to prepare a common suicide? ” HOPE IN HUMAN INSIGHT. In a German book on human heredity, written 12 years ago. there is this encouraging thought: “Happily, it is said, we need not suppose that pugnacity is an ineffaceable characteristic of north-west Europeans, for it may be hoped that their powers of insight, which arc exceptional, will in the end convince them that persistent self-muti-lation is senseless.” “ We have given up thinking of disease as due to evil spirits. Quite soon it may be just as unscientific to have any use for war. I regard it as part of the education of onr kind to understand those factors which bring collapse and extinction to a species and to act on that insight for the preservation of our own species.” _ In reply to a question. Dr Dry pointed out that the struggle between different species was very different from the suicidal conflict within a species such as modern warfare involved.