SCIENCE HAS MARCHED FOR, BUT FOR WHAT
Netboy, Anthony
Science Has Marched Far, But For What? MEN OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA, by Bernard Jaf-fe, Simon & Schuster, $3.75. Reviewed by Anthony Netboy IT IS well known that the spirit and enterprise of...
...Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), who made some of the basic discoveries in the nature of heat and transformation of energy...
...and Thomas Say, our first important entomologist...
...Franklin...
...When the Japanese attack engulfed us in war, we were, says Jaffe, "well on our way to world leadership in several fields of science, particularly astronomy, atomic physics, biochemistry, physiological chemistry, and radiation...
...You admire the pluck and energy of those men whose achievements are chronicled here, and who made possible the material civilization we enjoy...
...Constantine S. Rafinesque, one of many early 19th Century naturalists who did so much to catalogue the flora and fauna of the United States (in his case, fishes...
...From the days when Benjamin Franklin took time off from his many business and political enterprises to look into the matter of electrical currents and devise a lightning rod to Ernest Lawrence's recent attack on atomic structure with his cyclotron, we have produced so many mechanical marvels that the word Yankee is synonymous with inventor...
...A NEW era was introduced in American science when the Englishman, James Smithson, snubbed by his own countrymen, left an estate of over $500,000 to create an institution at Washington, D. C, "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge...
...Much of our peacetime research came to a halt, but the prostituted scientific servants of Mars found bigger and better opportunities...
...Perhaps the secrets of nature ought to be left alone for a time, else the mechanical monsters we create will in the end destroy the physical and moral basis of our culture...
...Men of Science in America is, so far as I know, the first attempt at a history of our tinkerers, gadgeteers, and theoretical scientists...
...Reviewed by Anthony Netboy IT IS well known that the spirit and enterprise of America is largely due to our scientific ingenuity...
...A sober and thrilling book like this is put down with mixed feelings...
...Written with considerable gusto and awesome erudition, the story is woven around the lives and achievements of a score of outstanding men—Thomas Harriot, the first naturalist to set foot on our shores...
...Thomas Cooper, the cantankerous schoolmaster who was a pioneer in chemical research...
...Thus was born the eminent Smithsonian, later further endowed by grants of Congress, the first to foster large-scale, orderly scientific work in the United States...
...But you also feel, what's the use of poking our noses into every crevice of nature and learning not only her secrets but how to harness her power, if in the end this power is used to murder thousands of young men every day, for six, seven, lord knows how many years...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 32
