Science and the Philosopher's Stone
Through. Alchemy to Chemistry. By J. Read. (Bell, 18s. 6d.)
1N the seventeenth century, when Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist whom this country has ever Produced, was alive, 'hypothesis' was to such a What a bad word. Today, an essential part of the 1)i=chanism of the advance of science is to arrange new observations together with existing data into Soille kind or other of working hypothesis. Deduc- tion from it entails predictions which are put to the test of direct observation or contrived experi- nlnyt; and when enough evidence in support has accumulated, the hypothesis is given provisional acceptance. De Morgan, the first professor of
ithematics at University College, London, sum- marised the modern scientific attitude in the W irds: 'Wrong hypotheses, rightly worked, have Produced more useful results than unguided Observations.'
For this to be true, however, a certain flexibility of mind is required. The hypothesis must be a hYpothesis and not a dogma. An American Physicist can usefully discuss the principles of nuclear fission with a Russian physicist because, if both of them are scientists, they will be pre- pared to let new facts modify their existing hYpotheses. On the other hand, they cannot Profitably talk about systems of government be- cause on this topic their minds are rigid.
Freedom to think about the natural sciences has not always existed. Indeed, it is only since the seventeenth century that the notion that such free- dom was possible led us into the present age of science. There is no cause to be surprised that Newton asserted that 'hypotheses, whether meta- Physical or physical, have no place in science.' Did he not have the clash of Galileo and the Church behind him—and Lysenko and Soviet genetics to come?
Professor John Read of St. Andrew's University has written a persuasive book called Through Alchemy to Chemistry which, because of his romantic affection for the pre-scientific times of the Middle Ages, blurs the basic and radical dif- ference between the kind of chemical thinking then and chemical science now. The long-drawn frustrating and sterile search for the Philosopher's Stone went on for more than a millennium. This dreadful waste of time and human effort was based on the hypothesis that the Philosopher's Stone existed, that it would turn everything to the 'perfect metals,' silver and gold, and also that the Stone was a perfect medicine capable of curing every human disease. Ardent dog-lovers often tend to acquire the same facial appearance as their pets. And Professor Read, whose histori- cal interest in alchemy is well known, now tries to make us believe that the alchemists have been vindicated by modern science, that by 'Philoso- pher's Stone,' they meant 'catalyst' and that the catalyst they referred to, if they had only known it. was a neutron !
This book is elegantly and simply written, it is full of interesting and esoteric learning and con- tains delightful illustrations. It is designed for the ordinary adolescent and the ordinary man and woman.' Historical science,' writes Professor Read, 'if approached befittingly, may reasonably take rank beside the so-called humanities as a broadly educative, cultured and humanising in- fluence.' The importance of science, however, is that it is a way of thinking. When a scientist talks about a 'beautiful experiment,' the beauty is from the means through which it demonstrates truth, not from an elaborate engraving of the alchemical pelican nourishing its young with its own blood.
The record of the fanatical belief in a wrong hypothesis—that, after all, the Philosopher's Stone might exist—still possesses a moral for ourselves. In the natural sciences we have learnt to use hypotheses as they should be used, that is as temporary scaffolding. But although this is so in natural sciences, in the social sciences we are still 300 years out of date. 'It is embarrassing,' wrote the authors of a modern English textbook of psychiatry, 'that . . . basic ideas of scientific method should have to be repeated and discussed . . . but not one of these requirements is met by a large part of the contributions which are made to psychiatric literature. . . . Hypotheses are reared in a vacuum without logical basis, and are ex- pressed in imprecise phraseology in terms which have not been defined.'
The importance of science as a humanising influence is as a logical pursuit of the truth. Pro- fessor Read puts us in his debt by offering his
A REVISED edition of Fall Out, Radiation Hazards from Nuclear Explosions (MacGibbon and Kee, 12s. 6d.) is published this week, with the original foreword by Bertrand Russell and, in addition, a report on the Windscale Disaster and an analysis of the US Congressional report on radioactive fall out and its effects on man.
wealth of learning of the strange, perverse and romantic errors which were steadfastly defended for so long by highly intelligent men in the past. The immediate pleasure of reading all this must, however, be supplemented by increased awareness of the modern nonsense which it is the business of
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