Modern Science And Modern Man (bampton Lectures In America)


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Modern Modern by JAMES B. and Science Man CONANT Columbia University Press, New York 1952, Columbia University Press, First printing New York 1952 Second printing Third printing Published in tircat Britain, Canada, India, and Pakistan by Geoffrey Cumberlcgc, Oxford University Press London, Toronto. Bombay, and Karachi MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Contents Science and Technology in the Last Decade The Changing Science and Scientific Scene, Human Conduct Science and Spiritual Values 1900-1950 3 31 60 84 Modern Science Modern and Man Science and Technology in the Last A FEW why I Man" WORDS may be have chosen the Decade in order at the outset to explain title "Modern Science and Modern for this scries of four lectures. When I was honored by the invitation to be the Bampton lecturer for 1952, President Eisenhower expressed on behalf of the committee the hope that I would undertake to provide "some understanding of the significance of recent developments in the physical sciences/' On my inquiring as to the was assured that professional philosophers and scientists would be conspicuous by their absence. My exposition, if not aimed at the pronature of the audience, I verbial man-on-the-street, was to be directed to the equally proverbial college graduate whom the hypothetical individual college presidents welcome each commencement to the fellowship of educated men. Being thus assured that I was not expected either to give an appraisal of Science and Technology 4 the impact of physics on metaphysics or a technical account of the inner workings of the atom, I gratefully accepted the privilege of being a guest lecturer at Columbia University. Under the terms I was In my still of reference thus graciously arranged, left great latitude as to endeavors to narrow down few that could be handled to a four lectures, I my choice of topics. a vast array of subjects in a general fashion in asked myself, what are the recent develop- ments of physical science that are significant to those young men and women now graduating from our colleges and universities? the trite answer you are more To ask this question in three words: the is to optimistic, with a variant, Now come up with atomic bomb. Or if atomic energy. admittedly extremely today to make an address without referring in some way to atomic bombs; particularly so if the speaker, as in my case, has been to some degree concerned with the development of these weapons. Yet an exposition of the elementary it difficult is about nuclear physics or an appraisal of the military possibilities of atomic bombs, or an estimate of the peaceful uses of atomic energy surely this is not what is exfacts pected from a ical Bampton lecturer in 1952. The technolog- implications of recent developments in physics and chemistry are certainly of the utmost importance, but a popular exposition of them would not go to the heart of the question that I ra
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