Science and Government

Abstract

THE general control of scientific research by the State, which is envisaged in the article on “Science, Politics, and the Government” in the issue of NATURE of March 8, is fraught with a more serious danger than any there discussed. There is little fear, if I know my countrymen, that our men of science will allow their research work to be biased by political, racial or religious considerations; or, indeed, that any pressure will be put upon them to do so when the excitements and passions of the present abnormal times have died down. The real danger is the one which Dr. G. Blüh points out so forcibly in his communication in the same issue of NATURE: the danger to freedom of all kinds which is inherent in the very conception of the ‘planned’ state.