The Frustration of Science

Abstract

AMONG the more hopeful signs in the last two years is the growing sense of social responsibility among individual men of science, and the widespread impatience with sabotage of foodstuffs or other products in a world in which hundreds of thousands are still insufficiently nourished or clothed. Naturally enough, both scientific workers awakened to a sense of social responsibility, and the ordinary citizen indignant at so much poverty and distress in the face of the incredible abundance with which science has endowed mankind, have been more concerned to find ways and means of appropriate action than to pause to establish the fundamental causes of this startling but distressing paradox. If, however, we are to make constructive suggestions and evolve a wise policy rather than adopt temporary expedients or palliatives, it is essential that diligent inquiry should be made into the underlying causes of what has rightly been termed the frustration of science.

The Frustration of Science.

By Sir Daniel Hall J. G. Crowther J. D. Bernal Prof. V. H. Mottram Dr. Enid Charles Dr. P. A. Gorer Prof. P. M. S. Blackett. Foreword by Dr. Frederick Soddy. Pp. 144. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1935.) 3s. 6d. net.