WHAT WE NEIED, FROM APPLIED SCIENCE
By DR. C. P. SNOW
THE first need is, absurdly enough, negative ; we need the abandonment of scientific efforts towards destruction. In this country, in Germany, France, and even today in Russia, the most concen- trated application of science; the greater part of the money given by Governments for research, is devoted to new methods of killing masses of people ; methods which are still not particularly efficient, judged by most standards of human endeavour (it took roughly 1,000 shells to kill a man in the last war ; and even now the efficacy of bombing raids arc probably exaggerated in our minds ; to talk, for instance, of the annihilation of London is hysteria), . but which are being carried out with the persistence of a schizophreniac madman, drawing his meaningless patterns day after day until he dies. There is no need to say more of this appliCation ; while it exists, it brings about a complementary need; that of defence against the newer arms, particularly against bombing from the air. I have heard famous and responsible scientists say that this defence may come, and sooner than most of us expect. At any rate, it ought not to be regarded as impossible.
The second necessity of applied science is equally obvious. That is, in the many fields where it can bring good to the world, our existing science should be applied. We need not . quibble about " good " here ; we can assume that 'men should be given the chance to live longer, and to have their share of the. decencies and comforts of life. Without another single discovery; simply with the knowledge already in our hands, science has empowered us to do this for the world. At least three-quarters of the population of the British Empire; or of the whole of mankind,• could have their average length of life extended by twenty years, by the application of knowledge already in existence. This is almost, certainly a grotesque undereitimate. By the use of preventive medicine, by the provision of a minimum diet which we now know, as a cold scientific fact, to be necessary for working health, the great majority of humanity would be kept from dying years before their time. There is no doubt of that. There is also no doubt that the .same is true of a large proportion of people in England. Some- where between a third and a quarter of all Englishmen— again I am underestimating—are being deprived of the health, of the years of life, which science has made possible for them.
The same is true not only of the years of life itself but of the leisure and amenities within them. The masses of mankind are living laborious, tedious lives, without either security or hope in the future. If the laboratories stopped tomorrow, there is enough scientific knowledge to do the work of the world with a fraction of the effort, and with enormously richer results. A full application of existing science could give leisure and a tinge of comfort to all. The contradiction ought to interfere at times with our peace of mind.
If, however, we forget this primary need of applied science—that it ought to be thoroughly applied for the common good—there are many things we can ask and expect of it in the next few years, we who already have most of the advantages of the present applications. First of all, there is health once more'. Assuming that we are able to use. the information of modern dietetics; that we are in the fortunate classes that can afford to be cured of pernicious anaemia, diabetes and so on;• what do we most need of medicine ? A good "ninny people would say a cure for cancer. That might well happen in some of our lifetimes ; anyway, there is already the strange clue which links some cancerogenic substances with the female sex hormones and those mysterious but vitally important compounds, the sterols, suggest. Then the heart and sclerotic diseases, which call on too • many of our most gifted (the connexion is not accidental) from Dickens to Lenin ; though a cure cannot be expected in the full sense, we ought to be able to palliate the effects. We know almost nothing of the whole group of rheumatic diseases, which indirectly menace many lives and are a distressing nuisance, both personally and socially. With any luck, they will be understood and mastered in the comparatiVely near future. In some, perhaps in all of these diseases, we shall need psychological investigations also ; at present we can only helplessly notice the conditions of mind which seem so often to run parallel with the physical com- plaint. Which is cause and which effect we may not know for very long ; possibly that particular question has little'meaning ; but of some subtle connexion between mental and physical disorder there can nowadays be no reasonable doubt. There are, to take an example, a whole crowd of physical symptoms which go hand-in- hand with the neuroses of anxiety/. In quite a short time, these connexions may be traced where at present we suspect none at all. Their elucidation will be part of any real application of science to the improvement of health.
The next great task of applied science will be the provision of food (we must assume that we learn how to distribute it). There is room in the world to grow enormously more plant and animal food. You have only to travel by air occasionally to realise how empty even the industrial parts of Western Europe still are. The chief problem in growing more food will be simply to find out which plants are suitable for the uncultivated ground ; and, where necessary, to breed plants specially adapted to surmount the difficulties of particular districts. This has already been done with brilliant success by Vavilov, who had shown. in practice that, by the aid of plant genetics, potatoes can be grown from the: tropics to Within the Arctic Circle. His work is a beginning which will enable us, if we want, to support many times the number of people now living in the world. (Synthetic foods, by the way, are not likely to. be important. It is easier and more satisfactory to Ose seientific thought upcin the natural prOceis itself. Plant and animal genetics will help Id more than synthetic cheMistry.) Next, science will have to continue the steps it has already made in applying itself to materials. We stilt build with very much the same stuff and in very much the same manner as in dynastic Egypt. It is time we changed. For long enough we have accepted the materials to hand as though'they were the only conceivable ones for the purpose. For building we want something lighter, stronger; a better insulator of heat. Theinetallur- gists and crystallographers and chemists will have to make us a new material to order, so to speak ; it could, and will, be done ; the idea of new materials has only just touched us so far—in the high speed steels and metals for special tools.
Then we come to travel and communication, where applied science has an obvious task in- making the: aeroplane safer. Then luxurieS : we shall soon have teleVision Sets and television records and gadgets beyond. number ; one wishes one could be as sure of science's directed application to the deeper needs. Yet, most of those mentioned here should be satisfied within a genera- tion of two, if we can escape catastrophe. After that, and Outside the scope-. of this article, science can set. itself to. improve the -innate. quality- of the human race.
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