The Advancement of Science

World comment on the Pope's Christmas message naturally concentrated on his call to the United Nations to oust Hungary's puppet government from membership and his reiteration of the morality of defensive war. But another, less noted passage met with confirmation at an unexpected place--the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Modern man . . . thinks that man can be scientifically and technologically understood and controlled," said Pius XII. "But this is a false concept. Man's dignity and limitation consist in his being a spiritual being who can by a free act of commission or omission control evil within him or encourage it."

As part of the 123rd annual A.A.A.S. meeting in Manhattan, a symposium of social, biological and physical scientists agreed that science and technology were as far as ever from understanding and managing man. What science needs, said Psychology Professor Robert B. MacLeod of Cornell University, is to include the ancient Aristotelian and medieval concept of teleology--the idea of purpose behind natural phenomena. Renaissance scientists rebelled against teleology. Sir Isaac Newton rejected it entirely, said MacLeod, and scientists have followed his lead ever since. "The reduction of human behavior to Newtonian terms might restore the unity which science had in the time of Aristotle," he said. "But such a reduction does violence to the facts. We can restore the unity of science only if we broaden our conception of science to include those facts that invite a teleological explanation . . . the full richness of human experience."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.