MAKING EARTH A PARADISE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21018, 6 May 1930, Page 12

MAKING EARTH A PARADISE.

WEEDING-OUT POLICY NECESSARY. ~ ** of US still think of ourselves as the final triumph of biological evolution,” sam Sir James Jeans, secretary of the « i Soc i e *?’.> * n h‘ s contribution to the .Points of view ” series, which he broadcast recently (says the Daily Telegraph). He wondered why we were convinced that we had come to stay as rulers of the earth. Man had ruled only for a fraction .of 1,000,000 years, and it rather seemed that he must still establish his claim to be the permanent governor of the earth. , On the question of our code of social morality,,Sir James said; “If we are to make the earth a paradise again, it seems to me that our first duty is, at all coat 3; to prevent the moral, mental, and physical wreckage of to-day from reproducing itself and starting a new sequence “ unhappy lives trailing down through endless generations. “To encourage this stream of misery Becomes a vice;. to check it a virtue. r j. I* x l , B n ? w . known * as a scientific tact, that both physical and mental qualities are inherited. For this reason I do not believe that we shall get a happy and successful England unless we replenish our stock mainly from' the more happy ana more successful members of the community. . . To-day there is no weed-mg-ouk of the unfit; we save nearly all our babies indiscriminntely—good and bad, strong and weak, healthy and diseased, ibis does not mean that all types contrihute equally to the future population ? 1 England. Unhappily, the largest contribution comes from the most miserable and least successful classes. The last century has seen science progress enormously on-its physical side; it has ushered in the electrical and mechanic , .has produced so many new scientific devices and inventions that we have, I think, got a bit drunk with them, i have often thought that the next century may see- a similar rapid and sensational development on the biological side. Anti this may change the state of.society more than we can imagine. '. To only one instance: Suppose science shows us how to fix the sex of unborn children, so that parents can choose whether their next child shall be a bov or a girl. The first, tendency would. I suppose, be to equalise the moulders of the sexes, so that every woman could find a mate. But would it stop there? Or would women want to reduce the numbers of their sex still further, so that every woman would be greatly sought alter' Or would they, perchance, want to increase their numbers, so that by sheer wejght of numbers they would rule the earth ? ‘ I don’t think we can foretell how large the future population of the world is likely to be. _ Obviously the increase must stop some time and somewhere. The population of England-more than trebled in the last century. About eight centuries more of increase at the same rate would see the inhabitants of England packed like sardines; there would literally be standing room only. For myself, I am inclined to think that England is already overcrowded; I rather suspect that a less thickly populated England would be a happier England.”

—The Bison, the new French destroyer of 2700 tons, which was launched recently at Lorient, in her speed trials succeeded in beatibg the record held by her sistership Verdun. The Bison registered 412 knots (approxilmatuly 48 miles per hour), thus beating the world’s record of 40.118 knots set up by the destroyer Verdun.