Page:The Kingdom of Man - Ralph Vary Chamberlin 1938.djvu/32

26 of the scientific method as a corrective to undue subjectivity and wishful thinking gives any promise of enabling the individual and the group to deal sanely and soundly with those vital social issues upon the management of which the special significance and value of human life depend. It is not meant to say that substantial results have not been secured toward putting social studies on a scientific basis but that, in spite of the worthy aims of students, progress in this direction has been limited and applications largely nullified by the fact that these studies are so largely conditioned by beliefs and strong prejudices emanating from dominant social organizations and the philosophies they create in their defense. A superimposed relationship thereby comes to obscure and distort the true situation. The result is that in these studies there appear definite divisions or schools whose adherents not only condemn their colleagues of contrary views but combat them with all available methods, including prisons and torture in some countries, such as Germany. Thus progress in these fields is marked by strong controversies as contrasted with the pure sciences, such as physics, chemistry and most branches of biology in which there are not these militant divisions among the experts themselves.

Even in some phases of biology that approach or are involved in social problems, prejudices, — economic, political, religious and psychological— enter in to obstruct a free application of scientific method, with the result that distortion of facts and dishonesty are frequent. There is very high promise for a safe and effective sociological synthesis and program on the basis of results already achieved in psychology and genetics; but the difficulty of making substantial progress here among the people, by which our officials and rulers in time would be made aware of the realities, is extremely great. This may be brought home by considering that the mere use of such expressions as "genetics in relation to society," "birth control," "inheritance of acquired characters," and "differences in racial mentality" is almost certain to lead to more or less heated discussion, not on the basis of pertinent evidence, but on the basis of emotional reactions often arising from attitudes and mores acquired in early youth. In such discussions we may see how easy it is for subjective elements, — preconceived notions and philosophic speculations— and the accompanying emotional bias to confuse factual evidence and to distort scientific thought in behalf of preferred interests. Bruno was not burned by astronomers nor was the controversy over evolution a biological one even though many biologists participated in it.

It is a fundamental postulate of modern science that man is part of nature and that his body, mind and social relations are subject to laws which may be studied comparatively and scientifically. To seek to solve his problems on any other assumption is futile, We have been released from fear of finding the truth about physical forces. We must become free from the fear of knowing the truth about ourselves. The recognition of man's solidarity with Nature is an indispensable basis for acquiring any accurate information about