Abstract
ALL scientific workers will thank Prof. A. V. Hill for raising the problem of their status in a world in acute political tension (NATURE, Dec. 23). Most will agree with his main thesis, and few, if any, will hold it to be the duty of scientific societies, such as the Royal Society, to meddle with divinity, metaphysics, morals or politics. But this rule applies to the society as a corporate body, and not to its individual members. Those men of science who interest themselves in politics will be unable to agree with Prof. Hill's contention: “If scientific people are to be accorded the privileges of immunity and tolerance by civilised societies, however, they must observe the rules”. I am glad to think that individual fellows of the Royal Society, at any rate, have consistently disregarded these rules. Among its earliest fellows, Pepys and Brouncker, to mention no others, meddled in politics; in the eighteenth century, Franklin and Priestley meddled even more conspicuously.
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HALDANE, J. Science and Politics. Nature 133, 65 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133065a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133065a0
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