SCIENTISTS IN CONGRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 570, 24 January 1929, Page 8

SCIENTISTS IN CONGRESS

recent years, tne acquisition, ciassmcation, ana aissemination of knowledge has been facilitated by the pleasant practice of investigators meeting in conference and discussing their discoveries. This, apart from its social consequences, has other excellent results, and Science, quite as strongly attracted to it as other organised endeavour, has made the tacit admission that many heads are better than one. A man who has made researches and formulated theories must benefit through submitting his deductions to a jury of critical peers. In older days, when the barriers between men and nations were more substantial than they are now. the scientist, and in fact any investigator who was labouring to make contribution to human knowledge, was forced to work in isolation, having no commerce with others who might have been able to aid him in his quest; but now theories are discussed in learned societies almost before the man who advances them has been able to set them down in legible form. It is a healthy movement, and humanity reaps the benefit. New Zealand, in spite of distance from the big centres of knowledge, has adopted the method too, and many interesting researches made in the Dominion during the past year will be discussed at the annual congress of the New Zealand Institute of Science which opens its sessions in Auckland to-day. University professors, and laymen who have grown to be authorities,' on varied scientific subjects, will assemble for the purpose of discussing the problems of the year, and all will leave Auckland with the heartening knowledge that men of kindred spirit are keeping in sympathetic contact with ,the individual researches that are being made. There are many interesting addresses provided for on the programme, and contributions of value are certain to be made by men whose attainments have world recognition. Professor Benliam, one of the few Fellows of the Royal Society in the Southern Hemisphere, and occupant of the Chair of Biology at Otago University, is to lecture on “The Inheritance of Mental Qualities, ’ and Dr. E. Kidson, Dominion Meteorologist, will explain the mysteries of weather forecasting. Such addresses, valuable in themselves, are doubly so in the discussions they inspire. While the congress has a pleasant social side, serious business predominates, and final good is achieved through the inspiration of men labouring in many difficult fields.