426 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



science. It is, biologically, evident that we shall have to live with greed for 

 some time to come. But the more serious question is: ca7i human society sur- 

 vive without individual, social, and national guile? If the answer is "No," 

 we probably have here the most fundamental conflict between the scientific 

 method and society. 



Science, in spirit and method, knows no political aspects or national 

 boundaries. Individuals of all races and nations have contributed to our 

 present understanding of the nature of man and of the world. There is no 

 Democratic logic. Republican mathematics, Nazi physics, Fascist chemis- 

 try, or Marxian biology. The spirit and the method of science cannot change 

 with capitalism or socialism. This appears to me axiomatic. But fanaticism 

 in society and governments can temporarily retard discovery and further 

 advance in the understanding and control of life and nature. And yet we 

 hear claims from the Germany of today of a special Teutonic or Nazi 

 physics, claims from Russia of something called A4arxian genetics, what- 

 ever that is. These stupidities characterize our age, but they are not the 

 characteristics of science. 



If even our so-called educated fellow citizens were scientific their con- 

 duct would be more influenced by proven facts than by wishful thinking. 

 If there is anything that has been proved to the hilt in biology and medicine 

 during the last hundred years, it is the effectiveness of vaccination against 

 smallpox. There are no "ifs and ands" about it. It is one hundred percent, 

 effective and practically one hundred percent, safe. Of course, wherever 

 human hands, human agencies, are involved accidents will happen some- 

 times. Despite all these facts, men and women in this and other civilized 

 countries neglect and oppose vaccination against smallpox. We have large 

 groups of people organized into "anti-vaccination societies." And these 

 are not all ignorant people. Some are college graduates. If these people 

 walked in the way of science, they would accept and be guided by proven 

 facts. 



The exact biologic relations of man to other animals are still, in part, 

 a matter of theory. Animal evolution is probably now going on, but so 

 slowly that we usually fail to discern it. But the essential identity of the 

 structure and function of tissues and organs in man and animals is not a 

 theory. It is a proven fact. The heart, the liver, the stomach, the lungs, the 

 blood, the eyes, the ears, and even the brain are made up of the same stuff 

 and subjected to much the same diseases, wear and tear and ageing in man 

 and animals. It is also true that practically ninety percent, of the under- 

 standing gained in the last hundred years of preserving health and con- 

 trolling disease has been secured through experiments on animals. And yet 

 people, even in civilized countries, oppose experiments on animals as futile 

 and cruel, as of no benefit to man. These people are not all ignorant. But 

 they surely are not scientific. They do not accept, they are not guided by, 

 proven facts. Their thinking and motivation have not been touched by 



