January, 1938 



EVOLUTION 



Page Eleven 



including this year's solar eclipse, views 

 of the Arizona and Esthonian meteor 

 craters, a model of the mounting lor 

 the great new 200 inch retlector, and 

 close-ups ot the wonderful Planetarium 

 projector. — Allan Br o ins 



• 



BIOLOGY AND HUMAN BEHA- 

 VIOR. By Mark Graubard. 413 pp. 

 New York: Tomorrow, Publishers. 

 $2.50 



The specialists on the subject 

 throughout the scientific world are 

 quite in accord that human behavior 

 results from the interaction of that 

 biologic organism, man, with his en- 

 vironment, which admittedly is not 

 only physical, but social as well. Few, 

 however, are both competent and dar- 

 ing enough to employ and apply this 

 modern truism through all its implica- 

 tions. Dr. Graubard is in this sense 

 exceptional; for he is competent as 

 biologist and psychologist ; and he does 

 dare to follow through to the social 

 implications of his studies. In fact 

 he begins by calling attention frankly 

 to the existence of both free and en- 

 slaved sciences, the latter being those 

 in which free inquiry and teaching are 

 restricted by established prejudices and 

 vested interests. Obviously, these are 

 primarily the economic and social sci- 

 ences, whose professors must needs 

 walk softly lest they tread on influen- 

 tial toes. For himself, he insists on 

 freedom at any personal cost, and 

 thinks and writes accordingly. 



Alter an excellent introduction on 

 The Method of Science, he devotes 

 three chapters to The Animal and Its 

 Environment, giving a most explicit 

 summary of our knowledge of living 

 matter, neural reactions, conditioned 

 reflexes, functioning ot sense organs, 

 dynamic equilibriums and physiologic 

 buffering, in short the essential mod- 

 ern description of the living and react- 

 ing organism. Three equally explicit 

 chapters sum up and clarify the in- 

 tricacies of cell structure and func- 

 tioning, the physical basis of heredity 

 in chromosome and gene, the nature 

 and origin of mutations, and our re- 

 sultant clearer understanding of nat- 

 ural selection and the process of evo- 

 lution. 



To this point the book is just an- 

 other excellent exposition of recogniz- 

 ed modern knowledge. But from this 

 ^ point on the book becomes dynamic 

 and significant. "Human Nature" 

 becomes a realistic, living result 

 of inherent capacities shaped by 

 educational conditioning, and reacting 

 to the impacting stimuli of diverse, 

 often changing, environments. "Hu- 



man behavior" ceases to be a phrase 

 and comes to life; one realizes that the 

 author is talking about things as they 

 are. One understands better why 

 others have failed to attain such real- 

 ism when the author gives the Freudian 

 Mythology a piece of his scientific 

 mind, chides the Behaviorists for eva- 

 sion of social realities and puts his 

 critical finger very precisely on the 

 weakness of the Eugenists and their 

 "program". That weakness turns out 

 to be racial, caste or class prejudice, 

 the myth of self-assumed superiority. 

 That myth or bias is implicit in what- 

 ever social and economic arrangements 

 may exist, and will persist while privi- 

 leged castes, economic classes, impe- 

 rialistic nationalisms and like social 

 inequalities demand defense and sanc- 

 tion from obsequious professors ol sci- 

 ence. The daring author concludes 

 quite rightly that the full human po- 

 tentialities for achievement, and more 

 specifically for socially considerate be- 

 havior, cannot even be learned, much 

 less realized in tact, until inequalities 

 of economic and related privilege have 

 been removed from the earth. 



— Allan Broms 



THE ADVANCING FRONT OF 

 SCIENCE. By George W. Gray. 

 364 pp. New York: Whittlesey 

 House, McGraw-Hill Book Co. $3 



Inevitably this up-to-the-minute 

 book-length report of the news of sci- 

 entific discovery was chosen as the 

 current selection of the Scientific Book 

 Club. Their Review Committee rightly 

 describe it as "a truly thrilling account 

 in simple, revealing language, of con- 

 temporary progress all around the ex- 

 panding horizon of knowledge. No 

 living reporter is better qualified than 

 Gray to present the current news ol 

 scientific research in terms that convey 

 the meaning and spirit of the endeavor 

 without indulgence in false emphasis 

 or sensationalism." By thus quoting 

 unstinted praise from a critical com- 

 mittee of authentic scientists, this re- 

 viewer hopes to avert the suspicion ot 

 extravagance in the flattering opinions 

 he must give of this outstanding book. 



Above everything, it attains the first 

 quality of popular scientific writing, 

 complete lucidity. It presents each 

 problem so fully and clearly, yet with 

 only a necessary minimum of historical 

 setting, that the new researches and 

 achievements are revealed in all their 

 theoretical and practical significances. 

 This is therefore no mere reporting 

 of a miscellany of scattered news-facts, 

 but an entirely coherent account of the 



concerted advances on many fronts of 

 the increasingly interlocking body of 

 knowledge which we call "science". 

 That we conveniently divide it into 

 fields of physics, chemistry, astronomy, 

 geology, biology, psychology, etcetera, 

 no longer hides the underlying fact 

 that the multitude of apparently di- 

 verse natural laws which science studies 

 are interrelated basically. 



The author is particularly to be con- 

 gratulated upon an unusual capacity 

 tor popularization without distortion 

 of scientific attitude. This appears not 

 only in the absence of sensationalism, 

 but in the presence of true explanation. 

 So many science popularizers succeed 

 only in telling "what it is about", leav- 

 ing the reader ignorant of the actual 

 (usually technical) explanation itself. 

 But here one gets insight into the rea- 

 sons for things, with the technicalities 

 rendered into such simple language that 

 one reads on without even the con- 

 sciousness that these are difficult prob- 

 lems. Of course there are technical 

 problems quite beyond popularization 

 even by the skill of Gray, but there 

 is nowhere that exasperating pretense 

 of explanation of which so many other 

 popularizers are guilty. 



The up-to-dateness and authenticity 

 of the book are secured by Gray's 

 method of gathering his news. He 

 has gone directly to some seventy-odd 

 scientific workers in laboratories and 

 observatories, and from them has 

 drawn the story of what is new and 

 important in scientific research. 



Necessarily there had to be selection 

 of material, and the only fault one 

 finds is the omission of several fields 

 in which fruitful and vital research 

 has recently been done. As it stands, 

 the book deals largely with physics, 

 chemistry, astronomy, geology, bio- 

 chemistry and medicine. Archeology, 

 anthropology, psychology and the so- 

 cial sciences have perhaps, in the au- 

 thor's opinion, not made significant 

 advances in recent years. At any rate 

 they have not been included in his 

 story. However, in his concluding 

 chapter, "The Promise of Science", he 

 does drive home the fundamental part 

 that science has and must ever play 

 in solving our problems, physical and 

 mental, technologic and social. Within 

 the limits ol nature's law, man, through 

 .science, is free to mold his future. 

 In the effective and proper shaping 

 of that future of mankind, he insists 

 on the basic importance of widespread 

 education in science, and (quoting 

 Pavlov) on the "omnipotent scientific 

 method". — Allan Broms 



