April 7, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



375 



It has no cultural value other than what the 

 reader can supply by coordinating it with other 

 information that he has acquired from other 

 sources. Only by, and to the extent of, such 

 coordination does the fact become scientific. 



Is it not here that the scientist needs to con- 

 sider both himself and his reader? For him, 

 this fact he offers has a wealth of associations; 

 he sees it in its relations to numerous other 

 facts; the mere fact that this particular fact 

 is, has for him far-reaching implications; it 

 is against such a rich and harmonious back- 

 ground that he sees the fact. But with the 

 layman it is far different; he can furnish but 

 a meager background, often merely a dead 

 black drop. The fact as presented with its 

 allegory and analogy may appear to him very 

 beautiful, or wonderful, or surprising, but it 

 does not mean anything to him. Is it sur- 

 prising that he does not enthuse over it? A 

 person likes to feel that he is getting somfc- 

 where. An article that establishes a recog- 

 nized relationship between two or more facts 

 meets this desire, and by the serious minded 

 public would surely be received more favorably, 

 'than one that merely retails information. 



But the choosing and presenting of a rela- 

 tion between facts is difficult. The scientist 

 is embarrassed by the complexity of the rela- 

 tions that he recognizes; what portion of the 

 vast web shall he choose? And having chosen, 

 how can he supply the proper surroundings 

 to give it in any fair degree its true signifi- 

 cance when seen against the drab background 

 that will be furnished by the reader? To 

 succeed, he must know how to present his facts 

 and arguments so that they will fit into his 

 reader's experiences and habits of thought. 

 He must be acquainted with his reader. Is it 

 not here that the great difficulty lies? The 

 scientist of this country seldom has the leisure, 

 and often has not the inclination, to become 

 really acquainted with the experiences and the 

 mental processes of the non-scientist. As a re- 

 sult, he is imable to present his scientific knowl- 

 edge in a form that is readily understandable 

 by the layman. 



The remedy is to be found in a more intimate 

 acquaintance of the scientific and the non- 



scientific classes with one another. In the en- 

 deavor to secure such improved acquaintance, 

 the scientist is called upon to take the initiative, 

 and to do the most. He must cultivate the ac- 

 quaintance of the non-scientist; must study 

 him; must show him, in a way that he can 

 understand, what science really is; must make 

 him see that scientific work does not consist in 

 merely collecting wonderful, interesting, or 

 surprising facts and observations, nor in in- 

 venting useful or weird contrivances, but in 

 ascertaining how facts are related to one an- 

 other, so that he may be able to forecast with 

 confidence the results that will follow from a 

 given act, and conversely, may be able to speci- 

 fy what set of acts will give a desired result. 

 The non-scientist must be made to see that 

 science does not consist in making inventions, 

 but in furnishing the raw materials out of 

 which inventions are made. Once get the army 

 of non-scientists to understand these things, 

 and the secui'ing of their interest in science 

 and its advancement will cease to be a problem. 



The public can learn what science is, only 

 by being shown properly labeled examples of 

 it. These must be understandable, but never- 

 theless must be real and rigid science; and 

 in no case should the reader be relieved of all 

 necessity for thinking. Among the types of 

 subjects that appear to be suited to this pur- 

 pose are: (1) Accounts of discoveries, in which 

 the reason for undertaking the work and the 

 main steps in the establishing of the conclusions 

 are given. (2) Accounts of experimental re- 

 seai-ch, or of precise measurement, in which 

 the line of reasoning, illustrations of check ex- 

 iseriments, etc., are given. (3) Accounts of 

 experiments designed to established suspected 

 relationships between observed facts. Un- 

 successful experiments should not be ignored. 

 (4) Accounts of the establishing of relation- 

 ships between observed facts by purely in- 

 ductive methods. 



If we would avoid giving the public a false 

 idea of what science really is, let us discour- 

 age the practice of placing the label "science" 

 on presentations of mere isolated facts, and let 

 us clearly inform the public, by word as well 

 as by example, that science consists in the es- 



