Science and Social Problems

Abstract

WHEN the Council of the British Association meets next month, it is expected to have before it the resolution adopted by the General Committee at the recent Leicester meeting “to request the Council to consider by what means the Association, within the framework of its constitution, may assist towards a better adjustment between the advances of science and social progress, with a view to further discussion at the Aberdeen meeting”. The resolution may be regarded as arising from a pronouncement made by Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins in his presidential address and from an evening discourse by Sir Josiah Stamp on the relation of science to economic progress. The president gave, in the course of his address, an admirable exposition of the importance of biology to social progress and referred to the necessity of bringing into our statesmanship the guidance of biological truth. He also pointed out that the gifts of science and invention to humanity at large are immense enough to outweigh their misuse for purposes of destruction and other evils.