68o 



NATURE 



[July 28, 1921 



Letters to the Editor. 



yihe Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous commuyiications .\ 



Biological Terminology. 



Dr. Bather insists (Nature, June 16, p. 489) 

 that systematic zoology and botany are not wholly 

 based on description, and gives some interesting in- 

 terpretations of his own. Of course he is right — as 

 right as if I had said that Africa is a land mass, and 

 he had retorted that there were lakes in it. Driven 

 by necessity, we all, even systematic zoologists and 

 botanists, and even from infancy, practise inference 

 and seek to make sure. We employ crucial testing 

 when we desire to ascertain whether an explanation 

 is true. We neglect it {e.g. in favour of rhetoric) 

 when we wish merely to convince ourselves or others 

 that it is true — as in the case of politicians, theolo- 

 gians, and those 262 biologists who propounded 262 

 explanations of sex and did not attempt to test even 

 one. But all serious scientific interpretation is 

 governed by very stringent rules : we must found our 

 suppositions on verifiable facts ; we must try to think 

 of all alternative explanations of those facts ; and, 

 lastly, we must seek fresh and unlike groups of facts 

 which shall eliminate, one after another, all the 

 erroneous explanations. Then, and not until then, shall 

 we have finished with mere guessing. As L'berweg 

 puts it: "One single circumstance which admits of 

 one explanation only is more decisive than a hundred 

 others which agree in all points with one's own hypo- 

 thesis, but ar<i equally well explained on an opposite 

 hypothesis." 



Now, can Dr. Bather tell us of any modern sect of 

 biologists which employs this method? It became 

 fashionable among physicists and astronomers before 

 Newton, and is still the very breath of their nostrils. 

 Next it invaded chemistry — hence the rout of the 

 alchemists. Then it captured physiolo^ — hence the 

 modern science. Darwin and some of his contem- 

 poraries tried to introduce it into biology. But with 

 the passing of Darwin the impulse ceased. The new 

 men proceeded, unquestioned (that is the damning 

 point), to break every rule of scientific procedure. They 

 coined multitudes of words that sounded tremendously 

 scientific, but actually had no meanings in their 

 mouths, e.g. germinal, blastogenic, plasmogenetic, 

 somatic, and the like. They formulated hundreds of 

 hypotheses, and argued about them strenuously, but — 

 because of the vagueness of their principal terms 

 {e.g. innate, acquired, inherit) ; because they rarely 

 tested hypotheses and never as a body accepted a test ; 

 and because lack of crucial testing prevented the 

 utilisation of oceans of unlike, but perfectly authentic 

 and relevant, evidence that waited unexplored in a 

 host of subsidiary sciences — their controversies were 

 unending. Lastly, there happened the strangest event 

 in the history of science. Groups of biologists, dis- 

 gusted with the unceasing babble, declared that they 

 were done with controversy, and founded the "exact " 

 and "modern " schools. That is to say, each group, 

 believing that a particular way of observing facts was 

 especially modern and exact, proceeded to restrict its 

 evidence to facts observed in that way. But, as we 

 shall see presently, there is no especially accurate way 

 of observing, and it is a fundamental axiom that all 



NO. 2700, VOL. 107] 



facts, no matter how observed, are equal before 

 science. Again, if the area whence facts are derived 

 be reduced, there is a corresponding reduction of evi- 

 dence — of the power to discover crucial tests. Again, 

 while controversy is unnecessary, there must be dis- 

 cussion, or the truth can never be established. There 

 is a distinction between the two which implies a 

 difference in temper. In controversy men try to be- 

 little the facts and inferences of opponents ; in dis- 

 cussion they candidly examine them with a view to- 

 ultimate agreement. Yet, again, "exact" and 

 "modern " are rhetorical misnomers. This method of 

 restricting evidence is very ancient. It has always 

 fomented controversy, prevented discussion, and led, 

 not to agreement, but only to the foundation and 

 perpetuation of sects. Thus, Mohammedans have 

 always used only Mohammedan evidence. 



I am told that biologists think that I have wasted 

 ink and paper on a subject — the method of science — 

 which was thrashed out long ago. Certainly it has 

 often been thrashed out; hence modern science. But 

 never has it been thrashed out among- biologists; 

 hence the chaos in biology. As every biologist knows, 

 his opponents, usually the majority, lack the right 

 method ; hence their incapacity to perceive the truth 

 which to him is so plain. Anciently the scholastic 

 thinkers founded their assumptions on unverified data 

 and neglected to test them by fresh appeals to 

 reality ; hence the dark ages of Europ)e. Francis Bacon 

 and his successors insisted that hypotheses must be 

 both founded on, and tested by, verifiable data ; hence 

 modern thought and civilisation. But biology is still 

 in the pre-Baconian stage. It is founded mainly on 

 the unverified assumptions that some characters are 

 more acquired, or innate, or inheritable than others^ 

 and, as I say, biologists rarely test their supffositions, 

 and never as a body accept tests ; hence the per- 

 sistence, in great measure, of the dark ages in modern 

 society. To-day no obscurantist dares to meddle with 

 the established truths of astronomy, geology, or any 

 interpretative science save biology. But he is still 

 supreme in all that pertains to life. For example, he 

 controls education, and, having rendered men un- 

 intelligent and trained them to unreason and passion, 

 has recently drenched the world in blood. In 

 England a million people, many of them innocent in 

 every sense, are poisoned annually by means of easilj- 

 preventable venereal disease, because ferocious, but 

 ostensibly saintly, savages desire to punish sin. Yet 

 man is a living being, and after all these years bio- 

 logists should be able to tell us, with the full force 

 of established truth, what may be achieved by educa- 

 tion and how to achieve it. At present, notwith- 

 standing the work of Lankester and others, biologists 

 are impotent. However, it will not always be so. 

 Sooner or later they are sure to fall into line with 

 other scientific workers, and found one of the greatest 

 and most potent of sciences. 



I daresay biologists will think I am vapouring, for 

 most of them are zoologists and botanists, and do 

 not, almost as a point of honour, look outside their 

 special sciences ; and, while all biologists will agree 

 that their opponents (usually, as I say, the majority) 

 employ wrong methods of inquiry, none will believe 

 that biologists as a class are ignorant or neglectful 

 of the right method. Well, consider the following. 

 Scores of similar instances may be found in litera- 

 ture. Once I read a book in which the author formu- 

 lated suppositions of no very great importance, but 

 which he, apparently using all the available evidence, 

 tested carefully and established successfully. I may 

 have been wrong in my opinion, and the author may 

 have been superficial ; but later I read a review of the 



