MISCELLANEA. 



Science and Democracy. 



In an article in a daily paper of recent date there appeared a 

 statement which is as remarkable from the standpoint of imar-ina- 

 tion as it is erroneous from the standpoint of fact. After passing 

 certain comments upon a letter written by Sir Oliver Lodge, in 

 which the writer manifested a misunderstanding of the nature 

 and use of scientific hypotheses, he j)i'oceecled to pronounce the 

 following obitei- dictum : — 



" It is not the case that the public is incredulous with regard 

 to scientific assertions. The tendency is all the other way ; the 

 plain man accepts too unhesitatingly what he is told by the pro- 

 fessors. And there is danger when anything that claims to have 

 the authority of science behind it is too readily accepted. There 

 are physiologists and sociologists, for example, who would apply 

 the laws which speculation has formulated in other fields to human 

 life, though these laws may be nothing more than untested hypo- 

 theses or may have no application to man. Thus Mendel's 

 famous law is valuable enough in dealing with plants, but in the 

 case of man it appears to break down. If it applied to the human 

 race, the progeny of every negro married to a white woman 

 should be in definite proportions pure white, pure black, and 

 mulattoes, and this, as is well known, has never occurred." 



We are not now concerned with considering the credulity or 

 incredulity of the public nor in asking whether it is true that the 

 " plain man accepts too readily what the professors tell him." 

 For we have first to learn that the plain man, or the legislator, or 

 the politician, ever reads the scientific works of men of science. 

 Neither are we concerned in holding a brief for the so-called 

 sociologists. For, unfortunately, the great majority of those who 

 pass as such, are neither men of science by training nor by 

 instinct. They are perhaps not incorrectly described as dilettante 

 or vicarious philanthropists desirous of spending somebody else's 

 money in an attempt to secure the salvation of those whose salva- 

 tion, there is too much reason to believe, is beyond both prayer and 

 hope. With regard to the statement respecting the physiologists. 



