JAMES BONNER 



California Institute of Technology 



The Probable Future of Auxinology 



The only way in which we can forecast the future of a human activity 

 is by projecting past trends into the future. This does not allow us to 

 predict with certainty; it only allows us to predict a probability, just 

 as the weather forecaster predicts the weather. He says, "Well, I can 

 measure some things today, and I can look around and see how 

 things were yesterday, and I can see how things probably will be to- 

 morrow if the situation develops as similar situations have developed 

 in the past." He forecasts a probability, and as you know about 

 weather forecasters, they are often wrong but never in doubt. And in 

 this same spirit, tempered by a certain amount of humility, I make 

 my own forecast of the probable future of auxinology. 



Let us start with the matter of auxin conferences. We've had quite 

 a number now. The first one was held, I understand, in Paris in 

 1937, and it was attended by about 20 people. In 1949 a conference 

 was held in Wisconsin and the official participants numbered about 

 45. At the third auxin conference at Wye in 1955, the participants 

 numbered about 65. Today, in 1959, we have over 100 people in at- 

 tendance. Twenty in 1937, 45 in 1949, over 100 in 1959. It is clear 

 that the doubling time for the number of people who attend an auxin 

 conference is about 10 years. And this enables us to predict, then, 

 that 100 years from now, at the conference to be held in 2059, there 

 will be approximately 100,000 people in attendance. It's a heart- 

 warming prospect. 



There is another trend we can also foresee. Quite evidently the 

 number of people who attend auxin conferences is increasing more 

 rapidly than is the total number of people in the world. The time 

 must therefore inevitably come when everyone, each single individual 

 on the earth's surface, will be an auxinologist. And if we bear in 



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