HAZARDS OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

C. P. SNOW, accomplished British scientist and novelist, observes that scientific and nonscientific intellectuals are hopelessly separated into two cultures. In "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" (Cambridge University Press), he says we are in a scientific revolution—a step beyond the industrial revolution. And this might save our industrial civilization in the growing political struggle between the haves and have-nots. (He puts the U.S.S.R. on the haves side with Europe and the U.S.) Those best qualified to carry the fruits of this scientific revolution to the underdeveloped countries demanding them are scientists with a well developed sense of human relations. He notes that the literary intellectuals have had little understanding of the sciences, and during the recent great growth of scientific knowledge have not faced the increasing importance of that culture with much willingness to try to understand it. Scientists, for the most part, have done no better from ...