Abstract
DR. LOVELL can be heartily congratulated on the admirable way he has discharged a difficult task. Within a hundred and fifty pages, he has given us a lucid and balanced outline of the training of the man of science, the organization of research, and its interactions with society, the factors which impede scientific advance and social progress, and a glimpse of the possibilities science holds for civilization could these obstacles be overcome; it should prove as stimulating to the general reader as to the scientific worker himself. This little book can be commended as a direct basis for discussion on the relations of science and society or as an introduction to the brief but growing scientific literature written with social consciousness. Its interpretation of scientific men and their work in the light of social responsibility, no less than its indication of the ways in which the frustration of scientific knowledge persists and indeed extends, and of the threats to intellectual liberty and life throughout the world, are well calculated to stimulate increasing numbers of scientific workers to consider the social aspects and responsibilities of their work, and attempt the interpretation of science in its social context.
Science and Civilization
By Dr. Bernard Lovell. (Discussion Books, No. 63.) Pp. 150. (London and Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1939.) 2s. net.
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Miscellany. Nature 145, 661 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145661a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145661a0