Abstract
IN an article “Rights and Duties of Science” in the Manchester School of October 1939, Prof. M. Polanyi examines the Marxist claims, and particularly those of Prof. J. D. Bernai in “The Social Function of Science”, for a radical reconsideration and readjustment of the duties of science, and of the assurances accompanying these claims that they will not impair the vital rights of science. the main points at issue are comprised in the relation of pure and applied science. A distinction between these is not admitted in Marxism, which attributes such a distinction in capitalist countries to the inner conflict of a type of society which deprives men of science of the consciousness of their social functions. Stating the liberal view of the distinction between pure and applied science, and concerning the relation of science and society, Prof. Polanyi points out that, to the liberal, science represents in the first place a body of valid ideas. Science consists of autonomous branches, ruled by their several systems of ideas, and these systems have proved permanont while waves of civilization have come and gone. In a shifting world the mind clings persistently to the rare structures of sound and consistent ideas, and in these structures all scientific interest resides.
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Rights and Duties of Science. Nature 144, 972–973 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144972b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144972b0