390 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE 



century. Science has no dogmas; all its conclusions are 

 open to revision by experiment and demonstration, and 

 are continually so revised. But science takes no heed of 

 empty assertion unaccompanied by evidence which can 

 be weighed and measured. " Nullius in verba " is the 

 motto of one of the most famous Societies for the pro- 

 motion of the knowledge of nature — the Royal Society of 

 London. 



It is especially in the area of biology — the knowledge 

 of living things — that the enemies of science make their 

 most audacious attempts to discredit well-ascertained 

 facts and conclusions. They tell their readers that those 

 greater problems of the science (as they erroneously 

 term them), such as the nature of variation among 

 individuals, the laws of heredity, the nature of growth 

 and reproduction, the peculiarities of sex, the charac- 

 teristics of habit, instinct, and intelligence, and the 

 meaning of life itself, have advanced very little beyond 

 the standpoint of the first and greatest biologist, Aristotle. 

 This statement is vague and indefinite; the conclusion 

 which it suggests is absolutely untrue. Aristotle knew 

 next to nothing about the mechanism of the processes in 

 living things above cited. At the present day we know 

 an enormous amount about it in detail. But when 

 men of science are told that they do not know the 

 "nature " of this and the " meaning " of that, they 

 frankly admit that they do not know the real " nature " 

 (for the expression is capable of endless variety of 

 significance) of anything nor the real " meaning " not 

 only of life, but of the existence of the universe, and they 

 say, moreover, that they have no intention or expectation 

 of knowing the ultimate " nature " or the ultimate 

 " meaning " (in a philosophical sense) of any such things. 

 These are not problems of science — and it is misleading 

 and injurious to pretend that they are. 



