SCIENCE AND HUMAN PROSPECTS 



By Eliot Blackweldeb 

 Stanford University 



On facing the duty of preparing the customary presidential address 

 for this year, I gave some thought to the question of what contribution 

 I could best make. Having been for many years a field geologist and 

 at times even an explorer, I might have gathered up the results of 

 many local studies and generalized them. Being engaged more re- 

 cently in studying desert physiography and the Pleistocene history 

 of the western States, I might have chosen one of those subjects — and 

 indeed they are well worth considering. 



However, in such a fateful year as 1940, it seemed to me that the 

 occasion called for a subject of greater importance and one that has a 

 more direct relation to the welfare of this nation ; and so I decided to 

 ask your attention this evening to a subject that has long been one 

 of my chief concerns — namely, education in science and its relation 

 to the future welfare of humanity. 



It seems to me that a teacher of geology, or indeed of any other 

 science, should devote himself not only to giving his students informa- 

 tion, and explaining processes and theories — ^however important those 

 educational duties may be — ^but especially to training young people 

 in the scientific way of thinking and helping them to acquire the 

 scientific spirit. To my mind, that is his most important function. 



Since geology is considered a science — albeit not one of the so-called 

 exact sciences — and since we call ourselves scientists, it may be well 

 to ask at this point, what, essentially, is science? In general terms 

 the dictionaries say that it is knowledge established, organized, and 

 systematic. To me, however, this concept is not adequate. In the 

 words of the great French mathematician, Poincare: "A collection 

 of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house." Verified 

 knowledge is one element, organization and classification are necessary 

 and so is the testing of hypotheses, but I cannot regard any of these 



* Address as retiring president of The Geological Society of America, delivered at the 

 annual meeting of the Society in Austin, Tex., December 26, 1940. Reprinted by per- 

 mission from the Bulletin of The Geological Society of America, vol. 52, Mar. 1, 1941. 



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