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Show Nucl ear war, population threaten man's existence BY JOHN CREA Staff Writer "Inside every man there is an inner man crying to be let out," said Dr. George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology at Harvard University, speaking at a Frontiers Fron-tiers of Science lecture Friday. Professor Wald said that it was the responsibility of education to bring out this "inner man". "From what base, what vantage point, can a scientist make moral and political judgments?" Professor Wald said he was one of those scientists who felt from the beginning that we had no business being in Vietnam or dropping napalm on peasants. Science attempts to systematically systematic-ally understand all reality, from the structure of the nucleus of the atom to people weeping and praying, pray-ing, explained Professor Wald. We may never understand but science will keep on trying. "One can gain knowledge from words but wisdom only from things," continued Wald. He explained ex-plained that science attempts to extract wisdom from things and that there can be no such thing as bad science. Technology, however, is for use in enterprise and should be constantly con-stantly reviewed. "Know all you can but do only those things that are good and proper to do." Along these lines Professor Wald also said that a choice must be made on what one can do abaut the needs, goals and aspirations of society. so-ciety. "It is wrong for all the choices to be made by the producers pro-ducers of technology." Professor Wald related that people must distinguish between creation and production. Creation is always good but production must be constantly reviewed and judged as to whether or not it is fulfilling the goals, aspirations, and needs of society. Questioning, "Is modern man alienated from society by science?", sci-ence?", Professor Wald replied that the contrary was true. Knowing Know-ing and learning make man feel more at home; therefore, with knowledge there is no alienation. He explained that during the first half of the century science seemed to lead to conflict and alienation but in that its purpose was to "sweep away the rubbish of previous centuries." Man could now have a unified view of the universe. Human dignity is to be !' exalted, according to Professor Wald. j He explained his ideas on the ' birth of the universe and continued con-tinued with the making of our solar system. He explained that stars and galaxies are born, grow 1 to maturity, and die in an endless I cycle just as we as humans are " born, mature and die. "Stars had to die before organisms could , live." i He related that all living things j are made of carbon, oxygen, I nitrogen, and eleven other ele- j (Continued on Page 2) 'Know all you can says Dr. Wald verse to be known said Prof. Wald. We must appreciate the dignity of man. The professor pointed out that man is threatened threat-ened now as never before by population explosion and nuclear war. "Nobody can win a nuclear war ... it is completely self defeating defeat-ing and self destroying." Prof. Wald also said that man is the first species to threaten istelf by over-production. The central problem is not keeping keep-ing people alive; what we need is that population which can keep fulfilling "the human potentialities poten-tialities the greatest." said the professor. Prof. Wald closed with the following fol-lowing quote from Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 19, "I have set before you life and death, blessing bless-ing and curse; therefore, choose life so that you and your descend-ents descend-ents can live." (Continued from Page 1) ments which are strewn forth by these stars. Planets, electrons around atomic atom-ic nuclei in an orderly way, begin first with molecules. Shapes and sizes did not exist without these minute particles. Some molecules are of special interest to us pointed point-ed out Prof. Wald. These are organic or-ganic molecules "Those out of which organisms are made." An aggregate of those reached a position which determined life. the natural selection process, according to Dr. Wald, is composed com-posed of three components: a ceaseless output of variations, a mechanism of inheritance, and a selective system. The struggle for existence is competitive everything every-thing that works a little better continues. He explained that there are two designs in our world: technological, technolo-gical, which sets down specific work and biological which contains con-tains no specifications but does contain ceaseless variations. Uniformity is the death of evolution: ev-olution: "Differences are precious, pre-cious, not the being alike!" However, How-ever, he said, every society should have a correct code of ethics, "for no society could long survive a faulty code of ethics." Man is necessary for the uni- |
