HATUMA DEBATE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 169, 4 August 1937, Page 12

HATUMA DEBATE

Our Own Corresp'oiident.)

"That Science is a Menace"

(From

WAIPUKURAU, Last Night. ' ' That Science is a Menace, ' ' was the subject debated by members of the Hatuma Debating Society last evening. The debate was of a more or less impromptu nature. However, one speaker for each eide had prepared arguments whieh were supported by mombers in the audience. . Miss Allan, in opening the debate, clearly defined the title and the terms of the debate. She said that Btudies in evolution tended to make students atheists and this fact showed that science was a menace. Socialism was a science, and a menace because human nature would not be standardised. The Science of theology and higher criticism had proved a menace. to the religious teaching^ of the oivilised communities. Science merely evolved theories, but, like sand, it iormed excellent building material, but a. rotten foundation. Science had brought about an age of luxury thus threatening our culture as it did in Greece and Rome. "Political science is the greatest menace in the world to-day," tne speaker concluded, ( ' simply because a few foreign eeeretaries hold the world in the palms of fcheir Jiands." Mr Ferguson, in opposing the motion, deait in detail with the advantages which science had given humanity. He ddvided his address into three parts, that of medieal science, agricultural science and inventive science. In conclusion he assured his hearers that the good created by scientific discoveries far outweighed the evil, and that any evdl was merely the misuse by man of those discoveries. Science itself was not to blame. . These two speakera were each ably supported by various meinbere of the society, At the next meeting of the society the subject ( 'That the Age of Chivalry fiias Passed" will be debated between Misses I. Thomsen, L. Edgecombe and J. Edgar for the affirmative, and Messrs J. Edgar, Renpld Thomsen and A. Ferguson will oppose them-