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On the face of it, the statement seems to be utter nonsense. Today, if we
have a toothache, we can visit a dentist who can perform a painless extraction
or make a permanent filling. A hundred years ago, dentistry was carried out by a
barber with a pair of pliers. Medicine, through science, has made astonishing
strides in improving the lot of mankind. Today, an appendix can be removed in
less than half an hour. Fifty years ago, the appendix would have been
perforated, with fatal results. Today, more children survive childbirth, more
people live longer than ever before, thanks to scientific discovery, and their
health and faculties, and therefore their happiness, have improved and increased
immeasurably as a direct result of scientific investigation. Science, however,
has done far more than promote health and longevity. In principle, the effect of
the application of scientific discovery had been to improve man's whole way of
life by allowing him to use the world's natural resources to the full. Simple
machines and processes have now become complex and efficient through the
application of technology -- another product of scientific technology -- another
product of scientific research -- and a further by-product has been the increase
of wealth, and therefore purchasing power both to the community and the
individual. Without science and its application, there would be no roads, no
transport, no street-lighting, no permanent buildings, railways, aircraft or
shipping; no radio, cinema or television; no books or newspapers. Man's
existence would, in fact, be at the bare subsistence level. He would be wholly
pre-occupied 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
five 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 all other known forms of
creation. Yet today, something has to be said on the other side. The old
proverb 'knowledge 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 nuclear scientists who possess the means of whole-sale
destruction. Such brain-power often goes together with psychological immaturity
and childish dreams of an 'international society' in which all knowledge should
be pooled. Such idealism, noble in the abstract, is dangerous in an imperfect
world, particularly, when scientists reveal 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
made warfare 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
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 all 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 the jungle, 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 made man's servant and not his master. |
