Abstract
IN Occasional Pamphlet No. 1 issued by the Society for Freedom in Science (April 1945. 1s. 6d), under the title "Is the Progress of Science Controlled by the Material Wants of Man?", Dr. F. Sherwood Taylor makes a spirited attack on the main thesis of a memorandum issued by the Association of Scientific Workers in November 1943 on "The Development of Science". Dr. Taylor challenges the historical arguments advanced in that memorandum in favour of the planning of science and, apart altogether from the question whether or not those arguments are justly inferred from true historical data, Dr. Taylor's pamphlet is to be welcomed as a corrective to an undoubted tendency to mix propaganda and history. It should stimulate clearer thinking about the development of science: science, he reminds us, is something done by people, and if it is organized at all, it is organized by people. He urges that no causes should be looked for outside the internal logic of science, until those within it have been exhausted. Listing the great discoveries of the years 1775–1800, he considers that only Watt's improvements in the steam engine, Cort's puddling of iron and Jenner's vaccination can be said to be dictated by human needs; and similarly, while applied science workers are concerned to bring the discoveries in pure science into rapid use, the great discoveries of the last fifty years were not dictated by human needs. Simply from the point of view of causing discoveries to be made, the community must take a long-term view and encourage science to advance in its own way.
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Historical Background of Planning. Nature 156, 166–167 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156166b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156166b0