HEAD OFFICE, MONTREAL, JANUARY 1949

SCIENCE IN OUR LIVES

W HATEVER else we may say about science,we must admit two things: it has played itspart in bringing about the comfortable

living conditions of today compared with a centuryor two ago, and it has at the same time added to thecomplexities of living.

So much progress has been made in the applicationof science that we are only surprised these days if weare not amazed by something new at close intervals.Things which would have seemed nothing short ofmiraculous to our grandfathers are accepted as amatter of course. We are being weaned, very slowly,from the idea that an inventor, a scientist, or a pro-fessor, is a long-haired gentleman, a little wild in thehead, who has crazy ideas which sometimes work out.

Advancement has been accomplished by fits andstarts. Some unknown genius of the long-ago pastmixed nine parts of copper with one part of tin andmade bronze, thereby lifting all mankind from thestone to the metal age.

Archimedes discovered the screw about 250 B.C.,but it was not developed past its primitive form untilLeonardo da Vinci went to work on it in the 15thCentury. And only the other day, Great Britain, Cana-da and the United States got together for the first timeto standardize threads, so as to make screws inter-changeable.

It was not until the 18th Century that a Swedishsavant, Linnaeus, undertook the task which, accordingto the Book of Genesis, had been Adam’s: to name allthe animals and plants. Linnaeus did a scientific job.

What is Science?

An interesting pyramid descriptive of the sciencesis set up by Professor R.C. Tolman, of the CaliforniaInstitute of Technology.

At the base he places mathematics, which selectsfor study from the real world only the simplest andmost general ideas such as those of order, number andsize.

By adding further ideas, like those of matter, energyand electricity, we come to the science of physics.

By including the ideas of different kinds of substanceand of chemical change from one kind to another, wearrive at chemistry.

By adding the ideas of a special kind of mattercalled living, and of a special kind of behaviour calledmental, we come to biology and psychology. And,says Professor Tolman, "by including in our studymore and more of the complexities of the actual worldaround us, we could pass on to social psychology,economics, and the social sciences in general."

This view brings out the important maxim that weshould not be so impressed by the apparent diversityof science as by its real unity.

Discoveries in science almost always have theirstarting point in an hypothesis supplied by imaginationand intellectual adventure. In early days the scientistroamed no farther than his city walls, and everythingbeyond a very small radius was unknown: today wehave built a huge telescope to pierce the Milky Way.

After imagination comes trying things out. Themischievous monkey pulls things apart; the same urgein man leads him to put things together in ever differ-ing forms. Much of his struggle seems to the outsiderto be quite pointless, but he has his eye on some goalwhich may have to be reached by a roundabout road.More discoveries have been made as a result of per-sistence than because of mental brilliance.

The Scientific Method

Scientists must be doubters and sceptics, becausethose who are satisfied with things as they are, and

with today’s explanations of things, will never dis-cover anything new, nor will they add to the advance-ment of culture or the living standard of mankind.

Science is primarily a matter of getting at facts andtrying to explain them. The scientist must be unbiasedin collecting his facts and weighing the evidence.When he comes upon unexpected phenomena hisfirst response is doubt. Darwin’s writings are a modelof refusal to go beyond the direct evidence, and hegives its full weight to every possible hypothesis.

Gravitation was just an hypothesis until it had beentested, then it became a theory. Applying this theory,and observing the behaviour of other planets, Leverrierand Adams discovered a planet (Neptune) they couldnot see.

One must be grateful to Carl L. Becker, author ofThe Heavenly City oJ the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers,for the happy way in which he describes this scientificpenetration of the Unknown: "Newton did not doubtthat the heavens declare the glory of God; but he wasconcerned to find out, by looking through a telescopeand doing a sum in mathematics, precisely how theymanaged it."

The experiment is another method of science.Galileo did not rest content with what Aristotle hadsaid about falling bodies, nor did he accept the reason-able supposition that a ten-pound weight would fallto the ground more quickly than a one-pound weight:he let them fall from the leaning tower of Pisa andshowed that things naturally fall with the same speed,not proportioned to their weight.

These virtues of the method of science: scepticismuntil the proof is shown; collection of all the facts;classification; forming an hypothesis and testing it, notonly within itself but against other hypotheses: thesevirtues might well be carried over into social andpolitical life with benefit to individuals and to thecountry.

Kinds o[ Research

There are, roughly, three divisions in scientific re-search: pure research, where the possibilities ofpractical application are remote; fundamental appliedresearch, in which a general use is in mind, but nodefinite application; and immediate research, whereinthe work is undertaken to solve a definite problem.

Thomas H. Huxley stood staunchly on the groundthat the great steps in the world’s progress have beenmade and will be made by men who seek knowledgesimply because they crave for it. Newton crowned thelong labours of the astronomers and the physicists bydrawing their discoveries together and adding thecatalyst which dissolved them into one vast system,but his principles helped no man to either wealth orcomfort. And Plato remarked in his Republic: "Scienceis pursued for the sake of knowledge of what eter-naUy exists, and not what comes for a moment intoexistence and then perishes."

Fundamental research asks "What is this, how doesit work, and why does it work that way?" Applied

research asks "How should we do this?" The first isattempting to understand nature, the second is at-tempting to control nature.

Technologists and engineers take the products ofscientific thinking and turn them into the wages ofworkmen and the stores-full-of-goods for customers.It likely required a greater mental effort and moredetermination by the technologist Edison to producethe first electric lamp than it did for the scientistFaraday to write his Experimental Researches in Elec-tricity.

Sir Robert Watson-Watt, the physicist whose nameis linked with the development of radar, s,ammed upthe distinction neatly: "The difference between thephysicist and the engineer is that the physicist isinterested in the forces of nature but the engineer isprimarily interested in the needs of man."

Science and Society

There is nothing new in the basic social problemposed by scientific discoveries. The very first flint axecould be used for the purpose of killing men, as wellas for procuring food.

When a discovery is made, such as that of the stoneaxe or of the electron, the discoverer cannot possiblyforesee the uses to which it may be put by succeedinggenerations. In short, science cannot be held account-able for social judgments. It can show us the betterways of producing things, but it can’t see that we don’tuse these things to blow ourselves up or otherwisedestroy civilization.

The only efficient protection, says Dr. du NoiSy inHuman Destiny, lies in a greater and higher moraldevelopment.

For the first time in history man is afraid of what hehas done with his intelligence. He is asking thesequestions: Where does this tremendous progresstend? What is its goal? What is its probable effectupon the future of the human race?

These are questions asked regarding science by SirAlfred Ewing more than ten years before the atomicbomb burst over Hiroshima. How much more do theyneed to be answered today!

Science and Industry

Science is the foundation of our wealth, but the riseof new businesses on that foundation creates newproblems. On the one hand there is increasing needfor an understanding of industry by the community,and on the other hand the need on industry’s part todevelop its understanding of the community and ofemployees.

The revolutionary advances of science and techno-log)’ in the past few years have resulted in increasingproduction with less labour. The fact that an industrialworker in Canada is paid several times as much in realwages as his predecessor received for much longerhours of work a generation or two ago is a conditionwhich rests upon scientific discoveries.

The increase in output per man-hour has been goingon at about the rate of 1.7 per cent a year for industryas a whole, it was reported by Professor Sumner H.Slichter, of Harvard University, in the Annals of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Science, anissue entitled Social Implications o/ Modern Science.This, he said, means doubling output per man-hourabout every forty years.

The whole economy has been affected by science.Consider as instances the increased number of mater-ials and processes; the increased geographical mobilityof labour and capital; the increased rate of change,leading to quicker depreciation and obsolescence ofcapital goods; the increase in the supply of investmentopportunities, offset to some extent by the reductionin the inclination to save.

These are not surface changes. They go to the veryfoundation of human nature. Science has transplantedcivilization to wildernesses, as in northern Quebec andOntario, with resulting changes in people’s ways ofliving. Science has enabled some nations to shift theirproductive pattern, throwing them into competitionwith old-established economies in other nations. It hasbrought necessities and luxuries within the reach ofmore people, changing the aspirations and outlook ofwhole countries.

In agriculture, science has been equally revolution-ary. Refrigeration, for example, has transformed thewaste land of Caribbean countries into banana plan-tations. Irrigation and scientific culture have converteddeserts into truck gardens. Mechanization and scien-tific farm practices have enlarged the economic landunit for crops, and at the same time encouraged themigration of people from farm to city.

So closely does technology tread upon the heels ofscience that the implement or machine purchasedtoday may have to be scrapped four or five years hence,an expense which must be taken into account whenmaking production plans and deciding profit levels,shareholders’ dividends, and the length to which tocarry expansion of factories.

Science and Employment

Contrary to the teachings of some labour sects,science has not caused a large amount of technologicalunemployment, and the problems created by displace-ment have been few.

Lord Stamp summed it up in this way: "At any givenmoment the impact of science is always causing someunemployment, but at that same time the constructiveadditional employment following upon past expiredimpacts is being enjoyed." He went on to point outthat there are other features which have a greater effecton employment: changes of fashion, exhaustion ofresources, changing tariffs, psychological booms anddepressions. These, and political factors such asthreats of war, expand and contract employment inparticular places and lines of activity.

Scientific discoveries have stimulated economicexpansion, created new trades and professions, andenabled men and women to find occupations whichsuit their capacities and provide them with interestingmeans of self-expression.

Social Science

Up to a little while ago mankind had been princip-ally occupied with learning to control his surround-ings; now he needs to learn to manage himself.

The development of physical science leaves thehuman part of the world of man untouched -- a partwhich was already old before Darwin or Faraday orRutherford existed. This human part of creationcannot be reduced to a slide-rule study of reactions.Every human being carries within him the results ofthe social influences that have been working on himsince birth, and on the whole human race since itsbeginning.

This fact makes social science most difficult. Con-sider the personal prejudices, the class and nationalinterests, the varying religious training, and thedifferent educational and ethical achievements of menand women. Personal interests are hard to reconcilewith the larger interests of the community and of theworld.

But the difficulty does not excuse us from trying,and unless we do try with some success the future ofthe human race may be black indeed.

Education in Science

Nothing can do more to remove prejudice, createcommon interests, and inform mankind against thedangers of social anarchy, than can education. Thereis enough exhortation going on in the world, but notenough explanation and expounding to make a realunderstanding of science one of the common pos-sessions of mankind.

Science and its works can be given in popular formwithout losing any necessary accuracy. In fact, byshedding some of its technicalities and abstractions itcan gain by becoming more closely related to ordinarylife.

J. D. Bernal, who wrote The Social Function oJScience, sees a double benefit through education ofordinary people like ourselves: to them and to science.Science can only develop adequately, he says, if it issupported by informed public opinion, and we willfind in such information our only safeguard againstmystical enthusiasms and anti-rational tendencieswhich make their appearance every once in a whilethrough tyrants, demagogues and revolutionaries.

The education which will make people understandthe needs and nature of science must start in school.It is not preparation for a professional life, but anelement in the training of the ordinary citizen. Itshould teach the child something about the universein which he lives, make him acquainted with the resultsof scientific discovery in things around him, and, mostimportant, teach him to think logically and to weighevidence.

Knowledge should be imparted in every manufac-turing plant, so as to make workers acquainted withthe principles behind the tasks they perform andthereby enhance their interest in their jobs.

It was easy to coast along in the world of a centuryago in which everything touching the common manwas so usual, so cut-and-dried, without hint of themysterious universe which is now exploded into amillion question marks by physics, chemistry andbiology. Life in those times was on a slow velocitybasis, when it was thought dangerous to have trainstravel faster than horses because the speed would havea bad effect on the human body. Today, everything ishigh velocity, and we may be tempted to go so fastthat we have no time to tell people at benches thesocial benefits of the jobs they are doing.

Canada and Science

Canada’s rise from scientific youth to maturity is oneof the significant features about her development.Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, president of the National Re-search Council and head of the Atomic Energy ControlBoard, said last year that Canada "is in the front lineof the scientific world for the first time in any sizeableway."

Expenditures of the Council in the fiscal year 1947-48 were $7 million, ten times greater than just beforethe war, and this sum does not include $6 million forthe Chalk River plant where scientists are helpingshape tomorrow’s advances. Tests are being madethere, in the heavy water radioactive pile, whichcannot be duplicated anywhere in the world.

Among the "practical" things developed out of thework of the National Research Council are: a depend-able method of de-icing airplane propellors by electricheating; aradar instrument which shows the airmanhis distance continuously from the ground; a quickmethod of producing anti-typhus serum; a method ofproducing magnesium from dolomite (introducing new industry to Canada); construction of a "flyingwing" type of aircraft in moulded plywood, provensatisfactory in tests; an emergency arrangement for re-frigerating the holds of cargo ships; development ofrot-proofing, flame-proofing, and water-repellancytreatments for fabrics; and, of course, contributionsin radar, RDX explosives, atomic energy and otherscientific projects connected with war.

Just last fall it was announced that a missing elementin the periodic table had been explained through thework of the Division of Atomic Energy of the NationalResearch Council of Canada and two University ofCalifornia nuclear chemists.

Science Internationally

Science has never been accustomed to confiningitself within national boundaries. As emphasized at a

recent meeting of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science, it is built up by the combinedefforts of conscientiously and objectively workinginvestigators the world over.

It is not surprising, therefore, to find that sciencehas a leading place in the programme of UNESCO.This plan calls for rehabilitation of science educationin devastated countries, international exchange andconferences of scientists and technologists, and pro-motion of research programmes of internationalconcern’. As a beginning, UNESCO will co-ordinatethe research by specialists from many nations on theresources and conditions of life.

The development of economic nationalism hasobstructed the application of science to human wel-fare. Science has shown us how to produce two bladesof grass where only one grew before, but nationalism,flying in the face of man’s increasing interdependence,prevents the best use being made of the extra blade.

If statesmanship can bring to the common man allthe benefits offered by science, it can give him new andnow unknown powers of personal satisfaction, po-litical efficiency and social service. An exaggeratedDarwinism introduces struggle for survival into everyphase of national and international life, whereasscience, when closely linked with democracy, willshow the far greater benefits to be attained throughco-operation.

There are large tasks left for attention, despite allour progress. Besides the conquest of space, muchtalked about today, and of disease, there is the crucialmatter of living together.

How far we have advanced in some ways is shownby the action of a delegate to the United Nationsmeeting at Lake Success last year who cabled to hisgovernment for permission to bring up the questionof ownership of the moon. And yet the people of theearth cannot settle their own national boundaries,and the ambition of a single tyrannous governmentkeeps three continents in turmoil.

This brings us back to the social sciences. Whilescientists continue their search for knowledge in thenatural sciences, we ordinary people must stop view-ing their achievements merely in primitive wonder.What they do brings us the possibility of a new kindof life, if we have the sense to develop the ethical,spiritual, political and social environment in whichthat new life can develop.

Science has placed us on an eminence from whichwe can see very far, though we do not know what liesbelow the horizon. But the most challenging problemof all is right at our feet: how to behave ourselvessocially so that science may do what science can do tomake life happier, easier, and more satisfying.

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