BAAS

The British Association for the Advancement of Science is much more attentive to the condition of the world and to its own place in human society than is the corresponding body in the U. S. Staging its annual meeting in Blackpool on the sandy shores of industrial Lancashire last week, BAAS had the usual number of sheltered sectional conferences on such subjects as Representation by squares and quadratic integers in a real quadratic corpus and The ecology of young salmon. But. aside from the astronomical lucubrations of Sir James Jeans and one or two other luminaries, the speeches that made most news were on questions of assimilating scientific progress into the quivering corpus of society.

Wells to Fold. Some three decades ago Sir Norman Lockyer, who discovered helium in the sun, urged BAAS to take some notice of social problems, to establish better communications with the public. The members snorted. Sir Norman thereupon organized the British Science Guild, which cooperated on socio-scientific matters with His Majesty's Government. When BAAS continued its indifference, famed Biologist John Burden Sanderson Haldane also resigned from it, and Writer Herbert George Wells mercilessly made fun of it. For the last twelve years persistent efforts have been made to reconcile the Association and the Guild. Now that BAAS inner council has changed its onetime "antisocial" attitude to one of thoughtful solicitude, the two organizations have merged. This year, therefore, sardonic Mr. Wells, who has an extremely wide if somewhat informal knowledge of science, turned up at Blackpool, had himself enrolled in BAAS.

Zoological President. Few if any scientists in Britain are more concerned with Science-in-Society than Julian Sorell Huxley. This owl-eyed, quick-thinking, quick-talking biologist of 48 is the grandson of the 19th Century's brilliant Biologist-Essayist Thomas Henry Huxley, the brother of Novelist Aldous Huxley, the grandnephew of Matthew Arnold. His most recent endeavors have been a tour of industrial and academic laboratories in Britain (Science & Social Needs), an examination of Science in Russia (A Scientist Among the Soviets), two popularizations written with a collaborator (Simple Science and More Simple Science}, a detailed blow-up of Nazi race theory (His Europeans), in which he printed pictures of individuals from various countries, challenged his readers to spot their nationalities.

As president of the Association's Zoology Section, Dr. Huxley delivered an address on "Natural Selection and Evolutionary Progress." Natural selection has been subject to much criticism because it does not account for all aspects of evolution and because Darwin gave no emphasis to mutations (sudden changes in the germ plasm). Biologist Huxley sides neither with those who would explain everything by natural selection, nor with extreme proponents of the mutation theory such as Thomas Hunt Morgan. In the Huxley view the two factors complement each other. But: "Natural selection, in fact, though like the mills of God in grinding slowly and grinding small, has few other attributes that a civilized religion would call divine. It is efficient in its way--at the price of extreme slowness and extreme cruelty. But it is blind and mechanical; and accordingly its products are just as likely to be esthetically, morally, or intellectually repulsive to us as they are to be attractive or worthy of imitation. . . . For the statesman or the eugenist to copy its methods is both foolish and wicked."

Physician on Strain. Thomas Jeeves Horder, Baron Horder, physician-in-ordinary to Edward VIII, spoke angrily at Blackpool on "The Strain of Modern Civilization." 'Tn the street," cried he, "the trained eye detects physiognomies in all stages of the anxiety neurosis, which unloads itself on the digestion, circulation and other bodily functions. The functional diseases of the heart, blood vessels or glands have increased more rapidly than the organic. A tactfully conducted pursuit of the causes removes the screen of headache, insomnia, indigestion and fatigue and the anxiety factor stands revealed. Life has always had a certain amount of strain connected with it," continued the noble doctor. "That is the penalty we pay for living. But the stress of modern life is excessive. We seem these days to live by accident rather than to die by it."

Solar Sideswipe. Sir James Jeans is mainly responsible for widespread acceptance of the theory that, some billions of years ago. a star passed close enough to the sun to exert a powerful gravitational attraction upon it. drew out long streamers of hot gas which condensed and cooled to become the Earth and the other planets. At Blackpool, Sir James said that a colleague had recently pointed out to him that this theory failed to account for the fast rotation speeds of the big outer planets, which have short days of about ten hours. The astronomer indicated his readiness to abandon the theory in favor of a better one.

Dr. Harold Jeffreys suggested that if the star actually sideswiped the sun, the pulled-out gas masses would be twirled between the two like a cigaret rolled between two human palms. Professor Edward Arthur Milne, famed relativist, suggested that there may be several different kinds of time, which would eliminate the paradox of the fast rotation speeds. Professor R. A. Lyttleton brushed off and brought out a theory originated by Henry Norris Russell of Princeton, which contemplated the sun as originally a double star, one of which was pulled away by a third star. Sir James Jeans seemed pleased by all three suggestions.

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