THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 December 1927, Page 4

THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE.

Pure science is n delicate plant, it lias never (lowered in Spain, and today it is almost dead in Italy. Everywero there are strong forces working against it. Even where research is rewarded, the usual reward is a professorship with a full-time programme or teaching and administration. The bacteriologist can most easily turn a title and a fortune if he deserts research for medical practice. The potential physicist or chemist can often quadruple his income by taking up engineering or manufacture. In biology and psychology many lines of research are forbidden by law or public opinion. If science is to improve man as it lias improved his environment the experimental method must be applied to him. It is quite likely that the attempt to do so will rouse such fierce opposition that science will again he persecuted as it lias been in the past. Such a persecution may quite well he successful, especially if it is supported by religion. A world-wide religions revival, whether Christian or not. would probably succeed in suppressing experimental enquiry into the human mind, which offers the only serious hope of improving it.—S. 15. Haldane, in the “Evening Standard.”