On the accept of it, the declaration seems to be utter nonsense. Today, if we hold a toothache, we canister trip a dentist who container function a painless extraction. A hundred years ago, dentistry was conceded out by a barber with a duo of pliers. Medicine, through science, has ready beyond belief strides in civilizing the ration of mankind. Today, an appendix container be detached in not as much of than half an hour. Fifty being ago, the appendix would hold been perforated, with momentous results. Today, new kids live through childbirth, new natives live longer than always before, gratitude to scientific discovery, and their health and faculties, and so their happiness, include better and greater than before incalculably as a train conclusion of controlled investigation.
in finding enough to eat and in defending himself from wild animals. Like that of the cavemen, his life would be 'nasty, short and brutish'. But science had done even more. The urge to travel and explore the world, and to develop its natural resources has been well served by science during the past iive years. Today, science has begun to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Tomorrow, who knows ? In any event, knowledge leading to 'know-how' is man's only means of satisfying his natural instinct to understand and dominate nature, because, although physically one of the weakest of the animals, mentally and psychologically, he is a giant in comparison with a“ other known forms of creation.
Yet today, something has to be said on the other side. The old proverb 'knowiedge is power' has more truth about it than ever before, and in many advanced countries, we are reaching the position where the real power has fallen into the hands of nuc|eor scientists who possess the means of whoIe-sole destruction. Such broin-power often goes together with psychological immaturity ond childish dreams of on 'internotional society' in which all knowledge shou|d be pooled. Such idealism, noble in the abstract, is dangerous in an imperfect world. particularly, when scientists reveol potentially dangerous secrets or defect from one political block to another. Today, science is indeed the enemy of man in this sense
Further considerations are the fact that science has mode worfore easy for the unscrupulous. Any small or vindictive nation can purchase jet aircraft, poison gas or the high velocity rifle. And some of the more general results of science are also somewhat disquieting. Crop fertilizers taint the crops. Tampering with nature can produce imbalance or drought. But the high velocity rifle. And some of the more general results of science are also somewhat disquieting. Crop fertilizers taint the crops. Tampering with nature can produce imbalance or drought. But perhaps, the most important danger is that science seems to be gaining control over man himself, as it has produced what we call 'modern life,' with a” its nervous tension, ceaseless activity, worry and unbalanced living. City-dwellers tend to curse the machine like the computer which has forced them into a rigid pattern of restricted, high-pressure and yet monotonous living. Charlie Chaplin's old film 'Modern Times' effectively satirized this tendency some forty years ago and, for most of us, life has developed along the liens he predicted.
Science, however, is neither man's enemy nor his friend. Like thejungle, it is neutral. everything depends on man's use or misuse of it. Today's signs are that its worst dangers are at least being recognized, and there is hope for the future, provided science is man made's servant and not his master.