Is v. Ought

To wispy-haired Anthony Standen, 43, the world is divided into two groups--"scientists, who practice the art of infallibility, and nonscientists, sometimes contemptuously called laymen . . ." By any standard, Anthony Standen is no layman.

After taking a "first" in chemistry at Oxford, he crossed to the U.S., studied chemical engineering at M.I.T., taught at St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., is now editing a chemical encyclopedia at Brooklyn's Polytechnic Institute. After two decades in the business, Chemist

Standen has decided that scientists are overbearing, overpraised, and overindulged. In a sweeping and savage little book called Science Is a Sacred Cow (Button; $2.75), he tries to tell why.

Mystical Virtues. Individually, says Standen, scientists are pleasant and even modest fellows. But their "collective ego" is something else again. They are so infatuated with their own scientific minds, that "they seem to think they are entitled to pour scorn on other subjects from a very great height." Standen does not deny that their practical results are admirable ("Better things for better living . . .," etc.), but unfortunately "it is not the results of science that they advertise most; it is always the 'scientific method' or the 'scientific attitude,' or a variety of other hidden, mystical virtues."

Meanwhile, laymen also have come to believe that science is a "cureall for mankind," infallible and above criticism. This, says Standen, "is a delusion . . . What with scientists who are so deep in science that they cannot see it, and nonscientists who are too over-awed to express an opinion, hardly anyone is able to recognize science for what it is, the great Sacred Cow of our time."

Probable Opinion. The sciences, Standen continues, range from "fairly good through mediocre to downright bad." Physics is "science at its best," and much of chemistry ("an art [often] related to cooking, instead of a true science") passes muster. But even these have serious contradictions. They make claims to the discovery of immutable truths, and yet scoff at all philosophical absolutes. Actually, their truth is not truth at all, but "a body of well-supported probable opinion only, and its ideas may be exploded at any time."

More important, says Standen, the physicists are really blind to the questions that should most concern men. "Is the universe to be thought of in terms of electrons and protons? Or ... in terms of Good and Evil? Merely to ask the question is to realize at least one very important limitation of physics."

To Standen, all the other sciences are guilty of the same limitation -- and laymen should never forget it. The biologists, trying desperately to be "scientific," spend a good deal of time trying to define their terms. The results, says Standen, are "ludicrous." They dare not even try to define "life." They define " 'stimulus' and 'response' ... in terms of one another. No biologist can define a species. And as for a genus -- all attempts come down to this: 'A genus is a grouping of species that some recognized taxonomic specialist has called a genus . . .'"

Guesswork in GobbledygooL The psychologists are worse, torn as they are between gestaltists, behaviorists, functionalists, reflexologists and other -ists. They expend their energies formalizing the obvious ("Although other sensations have various degrees of hedonic tone," says one textbook, "pain is notoriously unpleasant"). But the result of all their efforts, Standen insists, is that they cannot say anything really important about man. "It is possible to go clear through a course in psychology without ever hearing what the various virtues are."

As for the social sciences (sample thesis : "The relationship of population density to residential propinquity as a factor in marriage selection"), they are "guesswork clad in long, flowing robes of gobbledy-gook." Meanwhile, mathematics, the only exact science, has become merely the tool of all the others. Scientists deserve to be slapped, according to Standen, because they have substituted the is for the ought. "That is why we must never allow ourselves to be ruled by scientists. They must be our servants, not our masters."

Standen's book contains enough firecrackers to keep faculty-club lunches popping for weeks. Chemist Standen could expect few cheers from his fellow scientists ; even the professor of Greek might find him too glib to be taken straight. But for scientists or laymen inclined to speak of science in both holy and fearful tones, Standen's prescription might be a good little relaxer.

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