SCIENTIFIC CITIZENS
It would be an entertaining pursuit to compile the characteristics of the man of science—usually a Professor—as he is depicted in popular fiction, on the stage, and in the writings of exasperated conservatives in religious and social matters. It would be found that these characteristics combine to give one dominant and entirely untruthful impression: the man of science is represented as being scientific on all occasions. We may ignore the inferior school that portrays him as being constantly obsessed by his work—like Dickens’ learned gentleman who mistook the nature of a dark lantern—and confine our attention to the Professor who is represented, not as imbecile, but merely as homogeneous. This imaginary individual is never to be diverted from his passion for precise statement and strictly logical inference. Whether the subject be politics or the state of the weather, he brings the same preliminary scepticism, the same demands for verification, that he carries into his scientific researches. As we have said, this picture is untruthful; we think, however, that this is an unfortunate fact, and that it is highly desirable that men of science should begin to live up to the story-teller’s conception of them.
We think that, at the present stage of man’s evolution, science is the one activity in which he displays himself as a truly rational creature. The reason is, of course, that success is granted on no other terms; in everything else, philosophy, theology, politics, reason is usually the handmaid to prejudice. The penalties that visit error in these fields are not so swift nor so unambiguous. The ideal of truthfulness is probably more rigorous with the scientist, qua scientist, than with any other kind of man. But it would appear that this dispassionate rationality is hardly won and precariously maintained. Outside his laboratory the scientist may, and usually does, show himself as simple, as kindly, as credulous, as irrational as any other man. On Bolshevism, Disestablishment, the Morality of the Public Parks, his opinions will be indistinguishable from those of any other comfortable member of the lower middle class; that is to say that opinions on all such matters are “distributed” amongst scientific men according to the same statistical rules as they are distributed amongst ordinary citizens. Outside their views on purely scientific matters there is nothing characteristic of men of science. The Royal Society may conceivably issue a unanimous report on some scientific matter; it would issue a unanimous report on nothing else whatever. Now on the assumption that men of science are truly rational beings this is a very strange state of affairs. Dispassionate attempts to sift evidence, to argue correctly and to base judgments solely on the outcome of these processes could hardly result in so remarkable a multiplicity of opinions. We must assume that, for scientific men as a body, their “scientific” methods of thought function only within very narrow limits. As a distinct community they are far less coherent than, for instance, the community of artists—musicians, poets, painters. The community of artists, with the exception of a few prosperous members, exhibits a really remarkable homogeneity in matters outside art. Doubtless this homogeneity is based on feeling—unless we are prepared to admit that artists, as a whole, are more rational than are men of science—and it is probable that the scientist’s difference from his fellow-citizens is more an intellectual than an emotional difference. But it is surprising that greater emotional sensitiveness should prove so much more pervasive and dominating a peculiarity than greater intellectual subtlety.
It is time that men of science assumed a greater position in the general community. If a scientific training has a tithe of the general educational value that is claimed for it, it is time we had some evidence of that fact. Men of science must adopt a higher ideal of personal honour. At present the man who will conduct a laboratory experiment with meticulous precision and describe his results in an agony of honesty will be content to be a prejudiced observer and a slovenly and inaccurate thinker in all other matters. This is the chief reason, we are convinced, why men of science count for so little in public affairs. If the Royal Society elected its own member of Parliament, who would bother about the political opinion so expressed? What greater weight would it have than the political opinion of an equal number of moderately prosperous ordinary citizens? Does not the scientific man waggle his head just as solemnly over his morning newspaper as does any unsophisticated voter?
We plead for the development of a class consciousness on the part of the man of science. We want scientific men to regard their ideal of evidence, their conception of proof, their really admirable scientific detachment, not merely as rules making for success in their particular game, but as principles applicable to every subject that concerns a citizen. Why should a man of science be merely a Liberal or a Conservative in politics? The alternative belongs to the stage of mental development that explained the material universe by saying that its moving principle was fire, or, alternatively, water. We expect a more sober contribution to political questions from, say, a distinguished physicist, than the panacea “Shoot the miners.” All the questions on which scientific men now adopt “sides” as uncritically as any simple dupe of the daily press are amenable to scientific investigation. They can reach a solution only by the application of scientific methods, and the modern world badly needs deliverance from the method of charms and incantations by which these questions are at present treated. How long are these vital matters to remain in the hands of the witch-doctors? With scientific men content to sit in the circle and help beat the tom-toms what hope is there of real advance founded on real knowledge? The artists cannot help us; they are useful indicators of the value of the product, as it were; they look pleased or they look disgusted, and that is very helpful in showing us where we are. It is the scientific man who must show us how to go somewhere else. So we plead for the conscious formation of a community of men of science, for scientific men who are at least as pervasively and constantly scientific as a good Jesuit is Roman Catholic.