Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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NATURAL SCIENCES By Hadley Cantril. Ph.D. Stuart Professor of Psychology The over-all aim of the natural scientist can perhaps best be expressed by saying that he is trying to humanize nature. He is not trying to conquer nature. For nature is neutral. He is tr ing to understand her intricacies, moods, and changes and turn her essential neutrality to his own uses. Nature yields her secrets to him only if he begins to imitate her imagination, patience, and perseverance. And when the secrets are discovered, she will turn them to aid man ' s purposes only if he in his turn caters to her pur- poses. The soil produces for man only if man tends the soil: the domesticated animal serves man only if he satisfies her needs: the atom yields its energies for mans use only if man creates the proper conditions. What science does is to extend the range of mans sen- sorv and motor equipment. It extends our vision with telescopes and television: our hearing with radio and phonographs: our feeling with radar. It extends our mus- cles with water power, electricity, jet planes, and steam- ships. In short, the wonders and accomplishments of science are all devoted to increasing mans ability to Professor H. Cantril. Chairman, Department uj l ' s)rh(ilogy Pn.f.-s..r A. W. ' lurk... (hairnian. DefKirtment i f Mathentatits Professors H. H. Hess. Chairman. E. Dwtf, B. F. Howell. F. B. Van Houten, Department of Geology

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Profes! or D. G. Munro, Direi lor, ff ' oodrow Wilson School policy, the social sciences are in a unique position to con- tribute real meaning to the familiar phrase. Princeton in the Nation ' s Service. In the last analysis, then the basic aim of the social sciences is to contribute to the Princeton idea of a liberal education for life in a democratic society, an ideal which is founded upon the conviction that the most practical education is the liberal training which seeks to create independence of thought and judgment in the student. The social sciences, like the other dissiplines, are es- tablished upon the belief that a democratic society can never develop if the individuals composing it are merely specialists with no significant knowledge or beliefs held in common . . . Liberal education and the democratic ideal are related to each other in a thousand ways. It is not loo much to say that they stand and fall together. Professors G. Patterson, R. A. W. J. Baumol, Department Institutions Lester, Chairman. J. intr, oj Economics and Social Professor G. A. Craig, Department of History 24

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Professor L. Spitzer, Jr., Chairman. PciKirtnient ol Astronomy perceive more of his world around him more reliably and to fashion this world more easily to satisfy his pur- poses. The skill, know-how. and the procedures of scientific metliod are available to the student at Princeton in a- hundance and excellence. There is enough to challenge the most gifted genius. More important, however, may be the setting within which the natural sciences are studied here. A setting where most scientists are fully aware that what is lauded as scientific method is by no means a cold, inhuman objectivity: a realization that scientific inquiry is shot through with the scientist ' s own value judgments from the selection of the problem and vari- Professors E. G. Butler. G. Fankhauser. Dejiartment of Biology Professors W. P. Jacobs, H. F. Blum, A. U. Chase, Jr., H. F. Johnson, A. K Parjiart. (Jiairman, Department of Biology 26