Abstract
IN his presidential address delivered at Harrogate on July 6 to the Society of Chemical Industry, Lord Leverhulme emphasized the value of a scientific training whether a man's business career is on the technical side of industry or not. Scientific method and the scientific habit of thought have an application far beyond the confines of technical research and technical processes, and Lord Leverhulme referred in particular to the importance and value of a scientific study of markets involved in market research and forecasting, as well as to the development of scientific methods of management commencing with the ideas and methods of Taylor. Referring to the synthetic production of an increasing number of our raw materials, he suggested that this development indicates an economic revolution, the proximity and scope of which are as yet insufficiently appreciated and that the time is not far distant when man, largely independent of the accident of geographical or climatic environment, will rely very considerably on the chemist to provide substitutes. The chemist is a brilliant example of the truth that scientific research leads through the elimination of waste to the conservation of resources. In an age of industrial research directed to the production of immediately practical results, the question arises whether, in the highly developed sciences, we have gone too far in the direction of intensive scientific research with the object of gaining immediate benefits at the expense of more general research in the less developed sciences which might ultimately yield social benefits of no less value, though more remote. Lord Leverhulme suggested that if the law of diminishing returns operates in scientific research, it might well be better to devote more of our resources to the less developed and less immediately profitable sciences.
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Necessities of Scientific Training. Nature 140, 144–145 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140144c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140144c0