Abstract
SCIENCE in relation to education has been prominent in NATURE for many months, but one aspect of the matter seems to me to deserve more attention: the social and historical setting of science. Sir Richard Gregory said1: “One reason why few men of science care to take an active part in politics, is that they do not feel able to effect [such] a transfer of their trained habits of thought” to the consideration of social and political problems. It certainly seems true that very few men of science can effect this transfer ; nearly always judgment is heavily influenced by some bias, necessarily subjective. Moreover, this applies equally to men of letters, to men of business, to men in every walk of life. Therefore, we must think, not only of fitting the scientific man to play a conscious part in history, but also of giving the scientific outlook to the historian and the classic. When these men of the 'humanities' view social development with the same critical objectivity as the scientific man, they will be less likely to misguide us. The historian particularly needs the scientific attitude ; for example, it is incredible that H. A. L. Fisher could write in 1936 (“History of Europe”, p. 1207) on Hitlerite Germany: “Some items, such as the Second Punic War with England and the war of revenge on France, are no longer regarded as likely to be remunerative. Far more promising as a means of augmenting the territory of the Third Reich is the expedient of the plebiscite”.
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NATURE, March 7, 1942, p. 261.
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CASE, J. Science and Education. Nature 150, 236 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150236a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150236a0
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