SCIENCE AVENUE OF ESCAPE

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1934, Page 7

SCIENCE AVENUE OF ESCAPE

THE SALVATION OF CIVILISATION. KING'S MESSAGE TO GATHERING. British Wireless. Rugby Sept. 6. About 1500 visiting scientists are taking part in meetings of the British Assoication for the Advancement of Science. Before delivering the presidential address Sir James Jeans, the eminent astronomer, read a message of greeting from the King in which His Majesty expresed unabated interest in the meetings and confidence that their investigations into the manifold problems confronting the present-day scientists would continue to be productive of results which would benefit mankind. Replying to those who attributed most of the national woes, including unemployment and the danger of war, to the recent rapid advance of scientific knowledge, Sir James Jeans drew a picture of the decay into which the nation that called a halt to science would fall in all its activities, but pointed out that, while in respect of knowledge each generation stood on the shoulders of its predecessor, in human nature both stood on the same ground. These were hard facts which could not be altered and which they must admit might wreck civilisation. If there was an avenue of escape it lay not in” the direction of less science, but of more.