Science for the General Public

In this onrushing scientific era, so inadequately characterized as either the atomic or the space age, it is a truism to contend that everyone should know about science. Everyone must. The results of scientific progress in a material sense are very obvious. Whether there has been a penetration into the public consciousness and action of the motivations, philosophy, and rationale of science is another question. On the one hand, it can be argued that there has been a tremendous increase in the understanding of the methods and the importance of scientific knowledge. On the other hand, the application of the fruits of science and technology to both the motivatingly intellectual and to the materialistic, falls far short of what can be accomplished. That the hard-won knowledge of the universe is painfully acquired through trying again and again until discovery and verification brings forth truth--this process we must be convinced is the method upon which human progress is based. We must be convinced if we believe in the intellectual democratic process that this truth in all the fields of human endeavor will bring forth progress, and that it has, in fact, been the way in which the human race has evolved and risen to its present status. That we are imperfect in our knowledge and our application of acquired knowledge does not vitiate this conviction that it is through the scientific method applied to everything from stars and atoms to mind and motivation that has created the past and can build the future.published or submitted for publicatio