DOING HIS PART

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1934, Page 10

DOING HIS PART

SCIENTIST AND WORLD BENEFITS FOR HUMANITY. MUST HAVE FREEDOM. There is growing impatience with leaders in politics or business who allow themselves to be caught in difficult situations through failure to provide for a long-range research essential for a wise decision, says Sir Richard Gregory, writing in- Nature. Many citizens will be disposed to ask that organised knowledge, and methods of acquiring knowledge represented by science, must be given place in an era of social and economic planning, and that scientific workers themselves might show how knowledge may be related to wise and beneficial action. Science cannot be held responsible for the evils which have flowed from the advent of power-production into a world in which our economic and distributive system remains on the basis of prescientific era. Serious and impartial examination of the questions involved establishes the unassailable conclusion that, while technical and scientific factors may be only some of the factors in a situation, there can be no survival for a society which refuses to take adequate cognisance of such factors and to base its action and policy on definitely ascertained factors. “Moreover, in the growing importance of the human and social aspects of even our industrial problems, the need for the closer and wider application of scientific factors in such fields becomes the more apparent. “In view of recent events, it is necessary to place some stress upon the conditions under which alone scientific workers could be expected to devote their energies to such tasks. There are principles which a follower of science cannot surrender without seriously prejudicing his power to render service to mankind. ORDER AND CHAOS. “The great benefits which science has conferred on humanity have in the main been commensurate with the loyalty ; and devotion of the scientific worker to the service of truth. The more indomitable his devotion to that quest, the more consistent his refusal to turn aside, the greater the discoveries he has made, the more important the truths which have been revealed to him. “In the new age the man of science is called upon to devote his energy to the bringing of fresh fields under the control of mankind, to apply his methods to the reduction to order of the chaotic conditions at present existing in economics, the financial and distributive side of industry and trade, in sociology and in politics. “If his investigations in these fields are to enable society to sort out the issues, to frame its decisions and organisations on the basis of carefully ascertained facts and not merely on prejudices or irrelevancies, no lesser loyalty to truth, no slackening in ■the sincerity and impartiality of the scientific worker can be permitted. “That there are forces tending to weaken such loyalty and impartiality is obvious to all. The recent expulsions from academic life in Germany under the Hitler regime of some of her most eminent intellectuals, whose talents in arts and sciences and elsewhere have given her a leading place in international intellectual life to-day, place Germany with at least two other great nations in which assent to a particular national and political creed is a condition of freedom to pursue intellectual activities. “No such limitations can be placed on the human spirit without impoverishing the race. The scientific worker’s first claim must be loyalty to his vocation, and it is only when he concerns himself with the application of his results and discoveries that the State is entitled to see that his activities shall not be directed to ends likely to subvert the common weal. To demand allegiance to one narrow creed or outlook as a condition of disinterested inquiry is to impose shackles on the human intellect from which its noblest spirits instinctively revolt. PAST REPEATED. “There is indeed in the present situation a strange resemblance to the conditions which such pioneers as Galileo encountered. The shackles which in past centuries the Church sought to place on the expansion of thought are now being imposed by the national authorities of such States as Italy, the U.S.S.R., Germany and Japan. It may even be that scientific workers will be called upon to win anew such a victory for human thought as it once before ‘Won over ecclesiastical forces. “Nor is this the only danger which threatens. One of the most significant aspects of the relation of modern industry to the technical sciences is - very commonly overlooked. While the debt of industry to science is commonly acknowledged, it is less generally realised that with the development of these sciences there have grown up professional organisations, the spirit of which from the start has been alien to the spirit of business, at least in the years following the Industrial Revolution. “The professional spirit has consistently refused to be governed by the motives of private gain, and has, on the contrary, developed a sense of service to an ideal in which money-making has no necessary part. “It is not to much to say that under modern conditions the future of society as a 'whole, and of industry in particular, depends alike upon the vigour of unimpeded individual and fundamental thought, and upon loyalty to an ideal of service. Scientific workers have a great part to play in establishing a new world order, in assisting mankind to regain control over the main forces threatening the disruption of society. “That part cannot be played, however, if their freedom of thought, of speech, and of teaching is restricted, _or thenloyalty to unselfish ideals of disinterested service seduced by national or any other sectional claims. The world is entitled to look to scientific workers for help, but that help cannot be given on terms which deny their allegiance to the supreme claims of truth for unrelenting, wholehearted, and unselfish service. ’