IMPACT OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES ON SOCIETY

Abstract

THE cause célèbre of the Inquisition v. Galileo Galilei has often found mention in the columns of NATURE. In every recrudescence of the old controversy between science and religion it is as certain to crop up as King Charles's head in Mr. Dick's memorial, or as the burning of coffee berries at Costa Rica in a certain type of political argument, and with about equal relevance. The opprobrium showered on the instigators of that famous trial has been, perhaps, somewhat excessive. Their methods must be condemned-truth is not to be suppressed-but in their recognition that scientific discovery raises problems of vital import to society as a whole the Jesuit Fathers showed an insight into the potentialities of science which it would have been well if it had been shared by the statesmen of the past hundred years or so. The impact of discoveries in the physical sciences upon a society unprepared to receive them has led to an enormous increase in material wealth, but at the same time has raised a host of social, economic and political troubles from which the world is suffering to-day.