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SCIENCE 



Ralph W. Gerard 



The Role of Pure Science 



Reprinted with the permission of the author 

 from The American Institute Monthly 2(5): 

 8-15, 1938. 



One anecdote has it that when 

 Gladstone, shown the electromagnetic 

 motor, asked, "What good is it?" Fara- 

 day replied, "What good is a baby?" 

 The same question might be asked 

 about science itself, the last great off- 

 spring of civilization sired by intelli- 

 gence. If no longer a baby, it is at least 

 an obstreperous child, already playing 

 mischievous pranks on its staid mother, 

 and fearsomely regarded by many as 

 irrevocably headed towards a wayward 

 youth and a criminal maturity. Some 

 babies are best unborn, is this such a 

 one? Science, we hear, has warmed our 

 homes but not our hearts, increased 

 our longevity but not our charity, 

 raised our speed but not our hopes, 

 brightened our night but not our spirit; 

 in short, that it has comforted our flesh 

 but destroyed our soul. Society is sick 

 and science must be poisoning it, for 

 it has been taking great mouthfuls of 

 the bitter stuff; and is it not always 

 something just eaten that is responsible 

 for any ache? 



As a physician, I know that a gen- 

 erous portion of spirit of peppermint, 

 applied outside or in, neither brings on 

 nor wards off a renal colic; and as a 

 scientist I demand better evidence 

 than "post hoc ergo propter hoc," be- 

 fore agreeing that the social organism 

 is suffering from scientific dyspepsia. 

 But let us clearly understand one an- 

 other before proceeding. 



"Science," as Conklin, retired presi- 

 dent of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, said, "is 

 organized knowledge, and knowledge 

 itself is neither good nor bad but only 

 true or false." Pure science is concerned 

 only with understanding, not with 

 using; it might be denounced as value- 

 less, never as harmful. But, comes the 

 cry, this is sophistry; for are not scien- 

 tists incessantly prating their wares and 

 asking society to buy of them; do they 

 not ask to have their researches sub- 

 sidized and promise a manifold return 

 on the investment; is there any de- 

 marcation between pure science and 



