The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-09
BY DAVID RAMSEY


Science at the Cross Roads
nURING the years of the crisis
" science has seen its material sup
port steadily diminished, and has
found itself beset by idealists who
attack it for bringing On the crisis,
for forsaking God, and for its mani
fest inability to synthesize the host
Of modern discoveries. All Of these
difficulties are reflections Of the
general crisis Of capitalism. In its
period of decay, capitalism subsi-
dies extensively only those branches
of science that have a direct bear
ing on war preparations. It's in
ability to formulate a synthesis Of
modern scientific discoveries is due
to is fear of a consistent material
ism-the revolutionary implications
Of which are disastrous to religion
and the theological basis of capital
ism. This theological crisis in
science was analysed by Lenip, more
than 25 years ago. His analysis and
predictions have been borne out in
great detail by subsequent events in
The realm Of science.
Bourgeois scientists are to an in
ereasing extent becoming aware Of
the insolUble contradictions Of
scientific work. They are cropping
for a solution for the increasing dis
organization and sitting Of scien-
tifie research. They are also seek
ing for philosophy of science that
will enable them to fit together in
national picture the numerous
and apparently conflicting discoy-
cries of the last three decades.
Professor william E. Ritter of the
University of California, in speak
ing before a meeting of the Amer
lean Association for the Advance
ment of Science at Berkeley, Calf,
called these tendencies to the at
tention Of scientists. He said:
Surely no half observant, sensitive
worker in science today can avoid
anxiety for its welfare. The ground
for such anxiety that may be no.
ticed first is the tendency shown
everywhere Except, ominously in
RUSSIA to make scientific research
special target of economy in
financial expenditures" He went
on to view with alarm" the sus-
picion with which science is viewed
by the capitalists who control the
purse strings and the idealistic
philosophers who set the intellectual
fashions of the day.
In his explanation of this anti
scientific trend, Professor Ritter did
not go to the root of the matter.
He placed the blame upon The DOM
inant theology in science today
which merely picks things to pieces
to see what makes them tick and
SHES away from attempting a syn
thesis of the interrelations and in
teractions of the world as a dia-
lectical whole.
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been reduced to a collector of un-
related facts for the same reason
that it is denied essential funds for
new research. Science has come up
against the necessity for capitalism
to stifle all systematic applications
of human reason, since these lead
to truths that are incompatible with
its existence. That is why except
"ominously" in the Soviet Union
scientists are at the parting of the
ways.
To regain the ground that scien-
lists are losing in capitalist coun-
tries, and make further progress,
they must throw in their support to
the side of the revolutionary work
ing class. Under socialism they
will be able to reconstruct, not only
the organization of science as c.
social discipline, but will be able n
reconstruct the very foundations OF
science itself. Otherwise they face
the steady retrogression of scienti-
fic work, and the submergence of
scientific theory in the boys Of
idealism and irrationalism.