272 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



refute its opponents. An equal effort is made to suppress or 

 depreciate any facts that may prove to be embarrassingly adverse. 



The debating society may be a good place to train lawyers, but the 

 partisan attitude of "win the argument and confound the opponent" 

 is an unhealthy state of mind for a young scientist. Indeed, he can 

 never become a true scientist until he outgrows that mental attitude. 

 Kather he should cling to the advice of that wise old Quaker, William 

 Penn: "In every debate, let truth be thy aim, not victory." Per- 

 haps it is our sporting instinct, derived, it may be, from our age-long 

 struggles against each other, that makes us usually more interested 

 in winning a contest than in finding the truth. 



By those who have not considered the matter thoroughly, scientists 

 are often adversely criticized for devoting so much of their energy 

 to problems that seem to lead to nothing of any human value. No 

 doubt there is considerable merit in this charge. But we shall never 

 know to what extent it is justified, because we can only guess what 

 kind of knowledge and what kind of understanding may become 

 useful in the future. The history of science is full of examples sup- 

 porting this statement. Our huge electric motor industry grew out 

 of the simple discovery by Faraday that when a magnet was moved 

 in a loop of wire an electric current was generated in the wire. Why 

 should the knowledge of that bare fact have been of much value, 

 and why should the public have been impressed at the time ? In fact, 

 it was not. Only a few men of science gave it some attention, as 

 revealing a new principle — that of electromagnetic induction. Sim- 

 ilarly, the oil industry of Texas has been greatly aided by the in- 

 telligent combining of many bits of scientific information no one of 

 which by itself has much commercial value — such items as undula- 

 tions in strata, earth vibrations, soil analyses, and Foraminifera in 

 drill-hole samples. 



Although the gathering of facts cannot in itself develop a science, 

 yet facts we must have, in infinite number and variety, even though 

 they are only the bricks to be used by the builder. The mere multi- 

 plication of facts, the piling up of observations closely similar to hun- 

 dreds of others, is properly regarded as of less value than the search 

 for explanations, principles, and laws. While the layman thinks 

 of Major Powell as the intrepid explorer of the Colorado River and 

 its Grand Canyon, discovering, even at the risk of death, the wild 

 beauty of its scenery and the details of its geologic section, it is 

 fitting that geologists should honor him even more for his clear 

 exposition of the principles of the base level of stream erosion and 

 the antecedent river. 



In view of the fact, already mentioned, that we can seldom foresee 

 what utility any scientific fact or principle will eventually have, we 



