Science Isn’t Enough Y
NUMBER of us at the Esso Research and Engineering A Co. read with a great deal of interest the article by Anthony J. Lorenz in this column last November. Mr. Lorenz expressed alarm at a n apparent tendency of chemists and engineers today to become so “imbued with the sacred doctrine of a monogamous marriage to their science” that they avoid any contacts, from the highest form of cultural entertainment down to even the daily newspaper, which might divert them from their scientific interests. As members of a large, and we think, representative group of chemists and chemical engineers, we are also alarmed if persons mentioned by Mr. Lorenz are t o be found generally in similar concentrations of scientists. From a survey of our younger professional men at Esso Research we find a rather marked catholicity of interests, and little evidence that they spend all their waking hours on their individual problems in chemistry, or dream about these problems at night. T h e Esso Research Club has been operating for some 13 years-its objective to take professional employees out of their specific areas of concentration for some hours a t least once a month. We have had persons of national repute talk on a n astonishing variety of subjects. William Beebe Tropical Research Man as a Reasoning Animal Margaret Mead E. A. Horton Anthropology Wendell M. Stanley Viruses George A. Gamov Evolution of Stars Leo Wolman Economic Research Harold Urey Origin of Meteorites
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Aren’t these all scientific in some aspect? Of course. We do not wish to let our interests in science of some kind or another be strongly disregarded. Our Esso Research Club talks are generally derived from some field of science, preferably outside the chemistry and engineering which occupy our minds during working days. An hour’s period of movies preceding the dinner and evening talk we would like to consider as being distributed between entertainment and education. “Mickey Mouse” and “Skiing in the Alps” undoubtedly “set” better a t that time than a dissertation on great books. This column is intended as a vehicle for disseminating personal philosophies and experiences of successful professional men. We did not intend it a s a debating ground. However, we frequently act a s the intermediary between interested readers and particular columnists. This month an elaboration of one of these interchanges was prepared at our request by C. L. Brown, manager of Esso Research and Engineering Co.’s newly created Scientific Liaison Office, and chairman of the company’s Contributions and Research Grants Committee. Dr. Brown joined the Esso Laboratories at Baton Rouge in 1929, after receiving his doctorate at Brown University and teaching for a short time. He rose to be director of the Esso Laboratories and transferred to Standard Oil Development Co. in 1947 as assistant manager of research and development. He has been very active in community and professional activities and is a past chairman, and at present a councilor, of the ACS North Jersey Section.
A great number of American scientists and engineers have activities that take them out of their field of concentration. More than a few are devotees of the symphony concerts, the opera, and the theatre. Many find a great deal of time taken up by local school boards, boards of adjustment, boards of health, and church committees. Many give time to technical and scientific societies, as officers and committee members. I n such activities they do not find time or the audience to air themselves on their scientific problems of immediate interest. The question may well be “What is the proportion of younger men in such activities; will the extent of participation be markedly reduced as the present generation of older men retires and the younger ones mature?” If i t is true, we older men should be doing something about it. Here a t Esso Research there is a significant amount of interest in cultural matters among our younger men. If they have not attained prominence in civic and technical and scientific society activities, i t is in large part due to the time factor. They have not had time to become known in the community and to the engineers and scientists outside their own company. It is due in smaller part to participation in company orientation courses and in other activities, such as training in effective speaking, machine computers, and statistics. They are mastering the literature of their organizations and adjusting from a n academic training to industrial service. Professional people are active in Boy Scout activities, in church work, on technical society committees, on PTA committees, and in Community Chest Fund drives. We feel that the younger generation is accepting its community and professional responsibilities. The question of reading is something else again. We wish we could speak as authoritatively and as optimistically as we have done above. The volume of reading done in the older classics by ourselves and our associates is surely reduced over what it might have been a generation or so ago. Perhaps this is due to the nature of our times. We complain continually about the volume of scientific literature and our inability to keep up with the minimum reading necessary in our jobs. We try to engage in a t least a minimum of cultural activity, and some extracurricular activities of responsibility. The national and international scene changes so rapidly that few of us feel we are keeping abreast of what goes on. SO where is our time‘! Wisely or not, most of us probably feel that i t is less important to” read the philosophers, the historians, the poets of old than to try to know what may happen to us as individuals and as a nation today and tomorrow. The degree of “doctor of philosophy” is, we grant, open to criticism-more or less severe, depending upon the circumstances under which it is granted-but severe enough when it is a Ph.D. in science, for most graduate schools in science and engineering today make little effort to inculcate any principles of philosophy in those preparing for the advanced degree. Probably most of us would have chosen a doctorate in science. This would have cured one evil b u t would not have remedied the other. Science isn’t enough! Addition of some cultural subjects to scientific curricula may set the pace for later habits. It is our responsibility to see that this pace doesn’t slacken.
