310 



extensive and far more competent sum- 

 mary than I can give. Tliis particular 

 element of imperfection has to do with 

 the supposed objectivity of science. 



Careful thinkers have for long been 

 skeptical about the supposed objectiv- 

 ity of so-called scientific facts. In the 

 translator's preface to one of the master 

 works of Poincare, George Bruce Hal- 

 sted said a half-century ago, 



What is called "a knowledge of the facts" 

 is usually merely a subjective realization 

 that the old hypotheses are still suffi- 

 ciently elastic to ser\'e in some domain; 

 that is, with a sufficiency of conscious or 

 unconscious omissions and doctorings 

 and fudgings more or less wilful. 



We have spoken thus far of five 

 imperfect aspects of science. Let us 

 summarize the view necessitated by 

 these five points. 



Science has, as a tool for dealing 

 with nature, proved to be superbly 

 successful. With respect to physical 

 nature, and at all moderate scales of 

 space or time— say larger than an atom 

 and smaller than a galaxy, say more 

 persistent than 10~^*^ seconds and less 

 than a billion years— science seems to 

 have unlimited ability. With the ex- 

 tremely small or the extremely large, 

 with inconceivably brief or extended 

 phenomena, science has a diflBcult 

 time. It is by no means clear that our 

 present concepts or even our existing 

 language is suitable for these ranges. 

 In the realm of animate matter, science 

 has made wonderful, but more limited, 

 progress. And we can, at the present, 

 see no fixed barriers to further progress. 



But if one looks deeply within this 

 system, instead of encountering a 

 harder and harder inner core, instead 

 of meeting more and more dependable 

 precision, more and more rigidity, com- 

 pulsion, and finality, instead of finally 

 reaching permanence and perfection, 

 what does one find? 



SCIENCE 



He finds unresolved and apparently 

 unresolvable disagreement among sci- 

 entists concerning the relationship of 

 scientific thought to reality— and con- 

 cerning the nature and meaning of re- 

 ality itself. He finds that the explana- 

 tions of science have utility, but that 

 they do in sober fact not explain. He 

 finds the old external appearance of 

 inevitability completely vanished, for 

 he discovers a charming capriciousncss 

 in all the individual events. He finds 

 that logic, so generally supposed to be 

 infallible and unassailable, is in fact 

 shaky and incomplete. He finds that 

 the whole concept of objective truth is 

 a will-o-the-wisp. 



For those who have been deluded, 

 by external appearances and by partial 

 understanding, into thinking of science 

 as a relentless, all-conquering intellec- 

 tual force, armed with finality and per- 

 fection, the limitations treated here 

 would have to be considered as dam- 

 aging imperfections. You will have 

 realized, however, from the pride and 

 enthusiasm with which I have ex- 

 hibited these points, that I do not 

 myself think of them as unpleasant 

 imperfections, but rather as the blem- 

 ishes which make our mistress all the 

 more endearing. 



And this remark leads at once to 

 the final point— the fault which I do 

 in fact consider a serious imperfection. 

 This is not a weakness which is inher- 

 ent in the nature of science, but one 

 which has been created by the attitude 

 of scientists and non-scientists alike. 



I refer to the fact that manv scien- 

 tists—and the public which they have 

 over-falsely impressed— have created 

 a horrid and dangerous gap between 

 science and the rest of life. Tliis is the 

 tragedy of the "Two Cultures," which 

 have been so brilliantly discussed by 

 C. P. Snow. "I believe," says this scien- 

 tist who is a distinguished essayist and 

 novelist, "the intellectual life of the 



