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THE
SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF SCIENCE: Review
[D. Bernal, FRS, pp xvi +482, with index and appendices. London, e Routledge
& Sons, 1939, Price Sh. 12/6.]
In place of the usual blurb, the cover jacket contains two brief
lines that almost eliminate the task of the reviewer. "What Science Does! What Science Could Do?" But besides
containing surprisingly accurate description of its own contents, the book
is unique for the performance. A scientist of repute has approached the
problem of the relationship of science to society the same way as he would have
approached any other scientific problem requiring original thought and
research. He has dealt in a painstaking manner with every aspect of the
subject, subordinating each detail to its proper position and basis in the
general scheme. The result is a valuable book for everyone who wished to
study science today, even in detail. The contributions such as the appendix
on films duplication be profitable to any working
scientist.
A detailed examination of the book is beyond the scope of any
short review. But the author's thoroughness can only be described as
admirable. He not only gives balanced and well considered schemes for the
organization of research, but even goes at the problem from the proper
take- off by considering several attitudes shown towards science by leaders
of (British) scientific thought. There is analysis of the way science is
coordinated (or left without coordination) in every country of world; there
is also a serious and apparently successful attempt to judge the energy
spent on scientific work in each country. Finally, we are shown what
planning could do in science itself, as well as for the whole of society.
There is none of the Utopianism of Wells, nor 'his foundationless optimism'
(in the 'Autocracy of Mr Parham', or 'the shape
of things to come'); nor the reaction shown, to this by people like Huxley
(Brave New World) but both are analysed as well
as avoided. The pessimism of Russell ('Icarus' or
the systematically erroneous 'Prospects of Industrial Civilization') is
treated with silent contempt. The dangers of the idealistic approach
popularized by Messrs Jeans and Eddingtonare
noted, yet Bernal has escaped the all too common error of adopting the
pontifical attitude of these people for his own arguments.
What Hemal says about science in India
cannot be left unquoted, if only to show that there can exist a person with
a thorough grasp of the problem in the same country that published a
magazine like Nature, containing articles on the importance of
keeping up the proportion of "white" men in the educational and
administrative services of a colonial country in order to preserve a high
standard. We have here (pp 207-8) a refreshing contrast. I hope that my own
commentary in sqaure brackets will not be felt an
intrusion.
" ...The maths
of Ramanujan and the physics of Bose [physiology
would be better; as Rose left physics rather early] and Raman have
already shown that Indian scientists can reach the first ranks.
Nevertheless the difficulties under which Indian science suffers will
preclude, as long as they last, any large-scale development, or more
particularly, any serious influence of science on Indian culture. It is
inevitable that in science, as in other aspects of life, the Indian should
feel the need for national self-assertion, but his attitude is always an
uneasy one. The Indian scientist must, in the first place, learn his
science through English channels and be subjected to the patronizing and
insulting habits of the English to their subject races. The reaction to
this breeds a mixture of submissiveness and arrogance that between them
inevitably affect the quality of the scientific work. Indian science is
noted at the same time for the originality of many of its conceptions and
experimental processes, and for the extreme unreliability and lack of offcial faculty in carrying out the work itself. "
In particular, the last sentence is almost exactly what the Arabic scholar
and traveller Alberuni
said about Indian science nearly a 1000 years ago, characterising
it of as a mixture of cowdung and pearls. I can
say that this is about the sanest criticism of scientific work in this
country that I have seen given by any foreigner. To continue:
"Needless to say, Indian science, like everything in India except the English Civil
Service and the army is starved of funds. [He may have mentioned the Indian
National (...)* with these]. The total allotment or expenditure for
scientific research in India is not more than £
250,000 [a good portion of this goes in fantastic salaries to quite useless
persons] which would be equivalent to 1.50 of a penny per head of
population, or 0.015 per cent of the miserable national income of £
1,700,000,000. Yet there is hardly any country in the world that needs the
application of science more than India. In order to release the
enormous potentialities for scientific development in the Indian people, it
would be necessary to transform them into a free and self-reliant
community. Probably the best workers for Indian science today are not the
scientists but the political agitators who are struggling towards this
end" (italics mine).
After this fair appraisal it would be our duty to say a few of
the things that the author has left out for lack of space, or of malice.
The research work today in this country is confined to the universities and
to a few special institutions, controlled by and often actually worked by
people who know nothing of science. Though it is no longer the custom to
shove all the fat jobs of the educational system to one side for third rate
Englishmen who cannot be accommodated in their own country, the mark of the
beast has by no means been eradicated. The men who occupy the key posts
have obtained them by other means than research ability, usually by pure
charlatanism, boot-licking, and politics of the most decadent sort within
academic circles. Effective control of education, as of everything else,
was in the hands of the bureaucracy, educational institutions were always
run on government sufferance, and usually on government grants picked out
with the meagre income obtained from student's
fees. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Indian
"Professor" was a parasite on the already parasitic official
services, assiduous only in licking the boots that seemed capable of
kicking him the hardest, reactionary in politics, and proud at best of
having helped some of his students to the supreme bliss of admission into
the Indian Civil Service.
Research was a difficult proposition for such people. ( ...)** scientific activity that has come out of England in recent times, the book is
certainly worth possessing. No matter what the advances in scientific
technique or the structure of society, this work will remain a clear
presentation of the achievements and aspirations of science, as even of a
good scientist in 1939.
*Words in the original not legible
Published originally probably in National Front 1939 or 1940
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