Revival: The Frustration of Science (1935)

Alfred Daniel, Sir, K.C.B. Hall

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351339247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

From the beginning to the end of these pages, whether we read of the wilful destruction of the products and productivity of the soil, the aerial destruction of wealth by the thousand million pounds' worth, created by somebody's labour, the embarrassing fecundity of modern technology resulting only in every conceivable form of sabotage, the anomalous position of the conscientious medical practitioner. The refusal of women to bring children into such a world, the development of the art of spreading bacterial infection as a new war technique, or the frank abandonment by modern political movements of the hope of social progress that science renders possible – from the beginning to the end of these pages the reader will find elegant examples of the sort of ruling mentality now dominating the world.

Bitter, and justifiably so, as many of the critics of science are, surely nothing bitterer could be said of it than this, that its abundance has but enthroned the wastrel. Not is the solution exactly what one of the contributors rather naively suggests, that science should look for a new master. The solution is for the public to acknowledge its real master, and, for its own safety, insist on being ruled not by the reflection of a reflection, but direct by those who are concerned with the creation of its weather rather than of its debts. It should require that its universities and learned societies should no longer evade their responsibilities and hide under the guise of false humility as the hired servants of the world their work has made possible, but do that for which they are supposed in cultured release from routine occupations, and speak the truth though the heavens fall.

III

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY

ALL around us we see the examples of applied physical science. The electrical and chemical industries are purely scientific in origin, the motor and aeroplane industries hardly less so. The physical sciences have been privileged at the expense of the other sciences. The expenditure on them is something like twice or three times that spent on all the other sciences put together, so that, both in the final results and the means of obtaining them, it would seem that whatever is wrong with science applies least of all to the physical sciences. But the influence of physical science is seen even more clearly in unproductive features of modern civilization; in unemployment, in unused productive power, in war preparations. Present application of science produces these results as certainly as it produces the more obvious benefits.

The immediate proper function of physical science is to increase the material production of machinery, goods, and services only in so far as it leads to the increased effectiveness and happiness of the great majority of human beings. Behind this immediate function there lies one far more important in the long run, that of providing a basic interpretation of the physical world which can be utilized for understanding and then transforming biological processes. Still more removed from immediate utility is the technique of thought, summed up in that widely misunderstood phrase “Scientific Method.” These three aspects of physical science can only be separated in abstraction. Scientific understanding and scientific theory have actually grown up with the practice of experiment and in intimate connection with the development of industry. This connection has not been due primarily to the scientific genius applying his thoughts to practical problems. It has been a much more complicated give and take. Theories have started from unscientific problems and observations. Practice has been rationalized and extended as the result of theory.

The interaction of science and industry cannot be understood apart from its complex background. Without going beyond the so-called modern era, three great periods in scientific history must be taken into account. In the seventeenth century, the age of Galileo and Newton, the union of mechanics and astronomy reflected the need for more adequate methods of navigation and corresponding need for more accurate artillery. The next period, culminating at the end of the eighteenth century in new theories of chemistry and heat, expresses the needs of rising manufacture using localized power, of which the steam engine is the characteristic feature. The nineteenth century saw the application of these theories in practice. The turn of that century brought the development of distributable power in the form of electricity and mobile power in the internal combustion engine. At the same time, old traditional Neolithic industries such as baking, brewing, and tanning were transformed into new large-scale industries. The reactions of all these developments brought about that immense and critical revolution in scientific theory of the twentieth century, represented by the new quantum theory and the fundamental unification of physics and chemistry. We are now living in the middle of this period and have yet to see the application of its newly gained theoretical knowledge.

The present state of physical science in England is essentially similar to that in all countries except the U.S.S.R. Historically, scientific organization has been a chaos of independent development upon which, within the last twenty years, has been imposed some form of supervision and control. The main control, in theory, is the Government, represented by the Scientific Committee of the Economic Advisory Council, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (D.S.I.R.), and the Royal Society, nominally independent but actually so closely linked to each other that they can be considered as a single unit; though the control of the Government is at best indirect and partial over most of the field. Organized scientific work (and there is very little room for amateurs nowadays) in the physical sciences is carried on under four kinds of authority. There are the Services Research, for the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, with its Industrial Research Associations; the research institutions of the larger industrial firms and combinations, particularly in the electrical and chemical industries; and finally the universities and a few independent institutions where pure research is carried on as well as a good deal of research in connection with industrial and Government purposes. The Services spend about two millions pounds a year, the Department six hundred thousand, and industry something between the two. The universities spend about five hundred thousand.

These figures are somewhat misleading, as they include, particularly in the case of war research, money spent on large-scale testing of weapons. They indicate, nevertheless, the relative importance accorded to the different objects of scientific research. Not much can be said on the subject of war research owing to the secrecy under which it is carried out. There is, however, reason to believe that owing to these conditions it is very difficult for research staffs to carry on their work efficiently. It is probable that something like three-quarters or more of the money spent on war research is simply wasted, even from the point of view of increased effectiveness of destruction. In the last war the really effective applications of science to warfare could only be made by drafting all available civilian scientists into the fighting services, and even then it took a long time for their ideas to be put into practice. War research is essentially of two kinds; general technical efficiency and special military advantages. The first is represented by transport and military engineering, and gives rise to problems which are not different in essentials from those of civilian industry. In this field the two are completely confused. It is argued both that military research is valuable for industry, and that money voted for civil purposes has been used for military research. But there can be no doubt that all the advantages accruing from the application of military investigations can be obtained much more rapidly by civilian methods.

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research controls the National Physical Laboratory and the Government Chemical Laboratory, other institutions such as the Fuel Research Institute, and a number of joint research associations in the main industries. Although the possibilities of these organizations are very great, the official reports admit that they are not and cannot be adequately made use of. Their actual achievements in the eighteen years of their existence are substantial but not of any striking quality. They include improvements in design of furnaces, ships, or aeroplanes, rather than the development of new processes or materials. No fundamental application of science to industry has come about through the activities of the Department. The Department itself does not aim so high: it conceives its function, not as directing the positive development of scientific industry, but as correcting the defects arising in the course of this application and supplementing the research of industries too poor, too ill-organized, or too stupid to undertake research themselves.

Industrial research in this country is practically confined to the metallurgical, chemical, and electrical industries. A great deal of money is certainly spent, and there are some fine laboratories and capable workers. Such research does not, however, for the most part, attract the best brains in science. It suffers, almost equally with Government departments, from the evils of over-organization.

In the two great periods of scientific advance, the seventeenth and the eighteenth–nineteenth centuries, the really fundamental advances came from men working outside of the universities; only in the latter part of the nineteenth century has pure science been drawn completely into them, so that the independent scientist has virtually disappeared. The result has not been an unmixed blessing. It has led to the excessive separation of science into compartments and to its divorce from industry. Admittedly, scientific work in the universities has been largely subsidized by industry, but this is done in such an unintelligent way that, instead of acting as a link between pure and applied science, it merely provides the universities with another source of income which might just as well ome from elsewhere. Scientific research in universities is grossly inefficient, mostly for reasons of economy. Although men of ability can do brilliant and important work in universities or other free institutions, the result of their work is largely wasted. An enormous amount of utterly useless disconnected research work is also carried on by less gifted people who could be extremely useful working under direction in a suitably organized system.

All these aspects of research in physical science are interconnected. Service research links up on the one hand with the D.S.I.R., and on the other with researches carried out by the large metal and chemical firms. Indeed, if it were not for the enterprise of manufacturers of armaments, it is very doubtful whether the War Office and the Admiralty would do any research on their own. The military mind is naturally averse to innovations which make war so much nastier for all concerned. What can they do if new weapons are produced commercially but have their own experts to check the claims of the manufacturers and to see that at any rate they may hope to have some weapons that the other side have not got? Universities, industries, and Government are all linked financially, but the fact that they are connected and that on the different committees the same people are found controlling all these different aspects, does not mean that there is any comprehensive plan or even generally accepted idea behind the organization and application of physical science in England. The scientist is no longer a free-lance, and what he has lost in liberty has not been made up by any unity of direction.

The organization of physical science in the U.S.A. and Germany is not essentially different from that of England. In the States the National Research Council certainly adopts a more positive attitude. On the other hand, the connection between scientific research and war preparations are probably closer in the U.S.A. than in any other country except Germany. In Germany, before the slump and the advent of the present regime, industrial research was so developed as to rival the universities and technical schools. Everything there except war research is now in a state of semi-paralysis. Germany, England, and America dominate the scientific scene. The smaller European countries—Switzerland, Holland, and Scandinavia—with their excellent educational systems, belong essentially to the German sphere. France is isolated and apart. Only a few brilliant workers contribute anything of importance. In the rest of the world, India and Japan for instance, organized research is only beginning and is copying Western methods. There remains science in the Soviet Union, but here the conception of the relation of industry to science is so different that we can only deal with it after examining the possibilities and inadequacies of science within the framework of capitalism.

The actual achievements of applied science and techniques, great as they seem, should not hide the fact that they represent but a fraction of what could be done by utilizing existing technical knowledge and an infinitesimal part of what the new theories of the twentieth century could do, if and when they are applied. All important contemporary applications of physical science have been based on the classical scientific knowledge of the nineteenth century. Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831 did not begin to be applied to industry until 1882, when Edison built the first power plant and we cannot yet say that electric power has reached anything like its full development. The great discoveries of the twentieth century have not yet found their way into practice. One of the chief problems that faces us is to make the time-gap between theoretical discoveries and their application as short as possible. We can already anticipate what some of these applications might be and form some idea of the trends of further development.

The field of industry can be divided very roughly into materials and processes. Available materials set a limit to the techniques of any age. We have ages of stone, bronze, and iron. With the latter came the possibility of greater elaboration in the production of goods and services through machinery, and chemical reactions. All materials hitherto used by men have been metals, stones, ceramics and glass, and animal or vegetable products, usually fibrous, such as wood, paper, textiles, and leather. Developments of the immediate future disclose the possibility of great changes in the relative importance of these types of materials, extensions of each class, and development of important new ones. This will come about as the result of new demands for lightness and flexibility and the use of substances other than metal and wood.

The relative importance of metals will certainly diminish, though for a long time they will retain a basic function in technical construction, but they will not be the same metals. The lighter metals—aluminium, magnesium, beryllium—will come to replace the classical metals. Iron and steels will no longer be used indiscriminately for structure and machinery. They will be kept for tools and working surfaces. This change is held up by the immense vested interests of the iron and steel industries. But for the demand for aeroplanes essential for war purposes it is doubtful whether the light metals would have come into their own. Mining and metallurgy will reflect the change. Science has hitherto only added a veneer of improvements and through mechanical power enlarged the scale of their operation. Electrical and chemical methods will certainly tend to supersede methods based on the pit and the furnace. Already the production of magnesium is an almost automatic continuous process from the brine well to the rolled metal bars. The high-frequency electrical induction furnace is only at the beginning of its career. Even the blast furnace is threatened by a method of production of iron at low temperature by gases or oils. Heavy industries dealing with massive castings and forgings have already given way to more intelligent construction built up and welded. Our new knowledge of the intimate crystalline structure of metals can give rise to a new kind of fine metal work. The crystals will be orientated to give the greatest strength only in the directions in which that strength is needed. This will reduce weight of material by a very large factor. The use of reinforced metal films of soap bubble thinness may be an important factor in revolutionizing the electrical and chemical industries.

Changes in the use of stony materials, stone, cement, bricks, pottery, and glass, are not likely to be as immediate, though cement is already outstripping steel for construction. When we have learnt its rational use it may supersede steel altogether. Glass has already ceased to be exclusively domestic. It is becoming part of heavy construction. In time it may vie with cement as a material for roofs, walls, and floors. The development of hard alloys capable of working glass like a metal will enormously extend its uses. The greatest possibility lies in the development of colloid expanded glasses, or aerogels. They combine transparency, heat- and sound-proof properties, and are lighter than cork. It is now four years since these were first prepared in the laboratory, and in any society intelligently run every effort would have been made to produce them on an industrial scale, yet practically nothing has been done with them. With such light material the principles of architectural construction would be revolutionized. We could make buildings of lightness and elegance such as the world has never seen.

The manufacture of clothing remains essentially the same as in Neolithic times. Fibre is extracted from animals and plants, twisted together, woven, cut, and sewn. By ingenuity far more than by science the process has been speeded up to make it possible for the same amount of clothing to be made by far fewer people. The only important change has been the use of wood as a textile raw material, through application of chemistry in the artificial silk industry. Artificial wool and synthetic silk are almost immediate possibilities. It should not be impossible to short-circuit the present production of clothes by making at first from cellulose materials such as wood, by direct chemical and mechanical methods, a light and porous material which could be moulded or pressed into clothes without spinning, weaving, or tailoring. As such clothes could hardly cost more than a few pence, laundering would be superseded.

Introduced in our present economic era, such inventions would be an unmitigated disaster. Millions of people would be thrown out of work. Whole countries would be devastated. An orgy of speculative finance would certainly follow. The essential contradiction between the application of science and the economic system comes out clearly in such an example. For the sake of preserving the present economic system we continue to use primitive methods. The alternative, if science is to be used beneficially, is to scrap the system and introduce a rational one.

But it is not only possible to use such fibres as nature produces. We have already learnt to make fibrous substances by purely chemical methods. The industry of plastics, of which bakelite is the best-known product, is already flourishing. But this is a mere beginning. Natural fibres are made up of chains of molecules lying side by side—artificial plastics are jumbled masses of molecules tied together chaotically. Once we have learned how to attach molecules together in an orderly way in three dimensions, we shall enter into a new world of materials, with a range of properties altogether outside our present experience. Not only can we have combinations of every kind of physical property, lightness, strength, transparency, etc., but it will be ultimately possible to make active materials which, like living things, can change their shape and physical and chemical properties under suitable stimuli.

The present time marks the beginning of a transition from the use of materials extracted out of nature to materials constructed by men. If science can be used to its full capacity, the former will become relatively less and less important. Man has not obtained full control over Nature until he can produce materials with the properties he desires instead of doing the best he can with the materials that are already there.

Possible developments of processes in industry may be no less varied and important. The first industry to develop on rational lines was engineering, because its processes can most easily be grasped in terms of simple experience. To most people the great advance of the nineteenth century was simply the advance in machinery, steam engines, locomotives, textile machinery, etc. Through all that period the development of machiner...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• I. Science and Agriculture
• II. Aviation
• III. Science and Industry
• IV. Medicine
• V. The Invention of Sterility
• VI. Bacterial Warfare
• VII. The Frustration of Science