Abstract
WHILE we may acquiese in the necessity at the present time of concentrating effort on the gigantic task of national defence, we are nevertheless acutely aware that much is seriously amiss with a civilization in which such use of scientific effort should be necessary. On the credit side, however, it will be granted that the importance of social factors in industrial and national problems is widely recognized both within and without the ranks of scientific workers themselves, and the necessity for reorientation of research effort between the biological and social sciences and the physical sciences now appears to command general assent. There are, moreover, indications that at last some of the new powers that science has put at our disposal are beginning to find expression in ways appropriate to their purpose and less dominated by traditions or ideas of the past. True it is that the development of aviation remains warped by military ideas and demands, but the development of the motor-car, for example, is at last finding expression in its own appropriate forms rather than those dictated by the functions or purpose of the horse-drawn vehicle. Similarly in architecture, there have been some striking examples of the use of the newer materials, free from limitations imposed by traditional ideas or practice.
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Planning in House and City. Nature 143, 953–955 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143953a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143953a0