DAEL WOLFLE 



health of science depends upon the health of the nation's total 

 intellectual and educational effort. 



In the insistent repetition of this theme, the participants 

 were not merely making polite hows in the direction of the 

 humanities and arts, hut were expressing a profound convic- 

 tion that both the narrower viewpoint of science and the broader 

 viewpoint of man's total intellectual, cultural, and spiritual life 

 make it essential that the nation appreciate and cultivate intel- 

 lectual and educational excellence, broadly, at all levels, and 

 in all fields. This conclusion was given added emphasis a few 

 days later in the White I louse statement on education in 

 America, as it had been the central theme of the Rockefeller 

 report, The Pursuit of Excellence, a year earlier. 



It is not easy to change the climate of opinion, but some 

 steps can be taken. Part of the symposium discussion was aimed 

 directly at scientists. Several speakers pointed out that the 

 scientist himself is partly to blame for the fact that the general 

 public does not understand and appreciate basic science. The 

 research scientist too frequently avoids, rather than seeks, op- 

 portunities to explain science. If he does try to explain, he is 

 ever likely to talk of end products and applications, for these, 

 he knows, will be understood. It is, one of the speakers con- 

 tended, the responsibility of the scientist to do all he can to im- 

 part to others the processes, the wonder, and the beauty, as well 

 as the facts and uses, of science. 



It is difficult to explain what is going on in the forefront 

 of science to one who does not have the vocabulary, who does 

 not understand the techniques or theory, and to whom the 

 questions being explored seem remote from everyday reality. It 

 is difficult, but it is easier in some fields than in others. In 

 fields of science which have not yet ranged as far from common 

 experience as have nuclear physics and cosmology, the research 

 worker usually has less difficulty in explaining not only the 



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