Abstract
IN the same spirit, the General Committee accepted the recommendation of the Council for the incorporation of the British Science Guild in the Association. It will be remembered that the Guild was the outcome of Sir Norman Lockyer's presidential address to the Association, at the Southport meeting thirty-three years ago, on “Influence of Brain Power on History”. The stated object of the Guild is “to promote the application of scientific method and results to social problems and public affairs”. As is pointed out in the Report adopted at Blackpool, the same object is implicit in the aims of the Association; and the programmes of recent meetings have given evidence of a greater concern for these problems than was commonly exhibited ha former years. The terms of the incorporation of the Guild in the Association include the transfer of the capital funds of the Guild to the Association, together with contingent bequests from Lady Lockyer and Sir Albert Howard. The Council of the Association will appoint a committee, to be called the British Science Guild Committee, which will be entrusted with arrangements for lectures already initiated by the Guild and for any similar lectures approved by the Council. The Norman Lockyer Lecture is to continue to be delivered annually and to have particular reference to the relations between science and the welfare of the community; and the Alexander Pedler Lecture is to be offered annually to one of the corresponding societies of the Association, or be delivered at a centre outside London. The amalgamation of the two bodies was greatly to be desired, and we are glad that it has now been accomplished. Though, when the Guild was founded, few men of science took active interest in the application of scientific methods to the investigation of social problems, there is now a decided change of attitude in this respect and the columns of NATUBE have afforded abundant evidence of such repercussions. The Association has responded to this extended influence, and has thus shown itself to possess the progressive spirit which should be characteristic of every scientific institution.
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Incorporation of the British Science Guild. Nature 138, 431 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138431b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138431b0