impact of science on society

A quarterly publication

Annual subscription: [A] $2 .50; 13/-(stg.);9F

Per copy: [A] $0 .75; 4/-(stg.); 3 F

Any of the National Distri­butors listed at the end of this number will accept subscriptions; rates in currencies other than the above will be supplied on application to the National Distributor in the country concerned. W h e n notifying change of address please enclose last wrapper or envelope.

The articles appearing in Impact express the views of their authors, and not necessarily those of Unesco.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e (France).

CONTENTS OF THE PRECEDING ISSUES

Vol. XIII (1963), N o . 4 The social and economic consequences of the High A s w a n D a m , by T A H E R A B U W A F A . Some problems relating to developing countries, by E. K . FEDEROV. Teaching science as a way of life for better living, by Pedro T. O R A T A . The scientist's responsibility towards society, by A. Z . ZMUDSKIJ.

Vol. XIV (1964), No. 1 T h e growth of science and the distribution of scientists a m o n g nations, by C . V . K I D D Natural balances and scientific research, by J. L E B R U N . Water—essential factor of economic development, by R . L . NACE. Changes in civilization and their influence on landscapes, by P. GOUROU.

Vol. X I V (1964), N o . 2 Address to the National Academy of Sciences, by René M A H E U . The National Academy of Sciences of the U . S . A . , by F. S E I T Z . The discovery of artificial radioactivity, by M . V A L A D A R E S . The technical and social consequences of the discovery of artificial radioactivity in 1934, by J. D . B E R N A L and D . K . B U T T . Biochemistry, its development and its tasks, by E . K A H A N E . Proteins from petroleum fermentation, a new source of food, by A. C H A M P A G N A T .

Printed in Belgium by Imp. Ceuterick. © Unesco 1964. NS.64/I.52/A

Contents

The planned development of scientific research in Africa, by M . S. Adiseshiah

A survey is m a d e of the Lagos Plan for the development of scientific research in Africa. The author describes and com­ments on the action required at the level of each country, at the level of the African continent and at the level of the international community.

Oceans, science and men, by R . Revelle

Oceanography is the scientific study of that part of the earth which is covered with sea water. Its objective is to increase h u m a n understanding of all aspects of the oceans—the properties and behaviour of the ocean waters, the nature of living creatures in the sea, the interactions between the waters, the air above them, and the solid earth beneath, and the shape and structure of the ocean basins. Because the high seas belong to no nation, yet are used by m a n y nations, the scientific study of the sea is a natural field for inter­national scientific co-operation. But the most urgent need for international oceanography is greater recognition by individual nations of the need to study the oceans as a whole. A continuing investment in oceanography at a reasonable level could help to bring about economic benefits worth m a n y billions of dollars over the next twenty years.

Common understanding of science, by R . Calder

The barriers to the c o m m o n understanding of science are formidable. T h e growth of specialization, with each group of scientists inventing their o w n language of convenience, has made communication difficult both within science itself, and between science and the public. Yet the use, or misuse,

of science depends on social judgements and such judgements can be m a d e wisely and effectively only if m e n of affairs, and the public, are properly informed. The role of the com­municator in explaining the applications and implications of scientific discoveries has thus become of paramount importance.

197 Science and technology in developing areas

Suggestions and recommendations of the twelfth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

Roger Revelle, Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Scripps Institution of Research Dean of the University of California; was Science Oceanography, Adviser to the United States Secretary of the Interior, University of California, 1961 to 1963. W a s one of the organizers of the Intergovern-L a Jolla, mental Océanographie Commission, and first president of California, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research ( S C O R ) of United States. the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU).

D r . Revelle is a member of the Council of the United States National Academy of Sciences.

Ritchie Calder, C . B . E . , M . A . , Professor of International Relations at the Professor of International University of Edinburgh. Career, before academic appoint-Relations, ment, in journalism and in science-writing; winner of the University of Edinburgh, Kalinga Prize, 1961, awarded by Unesco. H a s travelled most 1 Randolph Place, of the world on missions for the United Nations and its Edinburgh 3, Specialized Agencies; was on the secretariat of the two United Kingdom. United Nations Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic

Energy (1955 and 1958). Professor Calder was consultant editor for the eight volumes produced from the proceedings of the United Nations Conference on Science and Tech­nology (1963) and prepared the comprehensive volume, World of Opportunity.

M . S. Adiseshiah T h e planned development of scientific research in Africa

Africa undertook in 1961 at Addis Ababa, with the help of Unesco and the Economic Commission for Africa, the long-range planning of its h u m a n resources, particularly its educational complex, so that by 1980 it would have the manpower base for self-sustaining growth and would equally extend the right to education to every m a n , w o m a n and child, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights.

The educational target during this twenty-year period provides for the eradication of illiteracy—there are 100 million African illiterates today—accompanied by a broad-based mass media programme; the raising of enrolments in the first, second and third levels of education from their present respective percentages of the school-age popu-lation-40, 3 and 0.2-to 100, 23 and 2 by 1980; the reform and adaptation of curricula to African rural, agricultural and cultural realities ; and the use of appropriate teaching methods and techniques. African national educational strategy, as a result of this Addis A b a b a Plan, is centred on educational planning—short and long term— as part of the over-all economic development programme; the rapid expansion of general, vocational and agricultural second-level institutions, and their teacher-training components; and the planned development of thirty-six universities.

In short, this is the planning of African h u m a n resources.

PLANNING OF AFRICAN N A T U R A L RESOURCES — THE B A C K G R O U N D

With these solid h u m a n resources and educational base, Africa has n o w turned to the other key variable determining its development—its natural resources. This term covers land, including soil, water and sea and the raw materials above and beneath it, climate, air, animal and vegetal life, mineral resources and natural springs, and m a n himself. It is a safe economic assumption—not yet proved by systematic analysis — that the natural resources of a country are one of the major contributors to its economic growth, rising levels of living and social well-being. The case of countries like Sweden and the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, whose high per capita income cannot be explained in terms of their limited natural resources, simply means that there are also other causal factors of growth. It does not negate the c o m m o n sense thesis that a vast backlog of under-utilized natural resources, as in Africa, with their productive

137

Impact, Vol. XIV (1964), N o . 3

M . S. Adiseshiah

utilization through a planned programme of scientific research, is a major factor in assuring economic and social development.

The relation between natural resources and scientific research is so close that they overlap ; one does not exist without the other. Natural resources are not simply gifts of Nature, the modern-day m a n n a from Heaven. They are, m o r e importantly, defined by h u m a n judgement. It is m a n w h o decides whether a natural element—his country's soil, vegetation, fauna, minerals, or climate—is workable or unusable. A n d it is this decision which makes such an element a 'natural resource'.

N o w this decision depends simply on the current state of scientific knowledge. The progress of scientific and technical knowledge has so vastly increased the scope of what w e term natural resources that some of what were considered Nature's most blind and hostile forces—such as the saline waters of the seas, the energy produced by waterfalls, the heat of volcanoes, the scorching rays of the tropical sun—have n o w been harnessed to our service and have been turned into natural resources through the most varied scientific and technological methods. Therefore, the basic problem is science and technology, and the development of scientific research as the continuing effort at innovation that creates n e w natural resources and paves the way to development.

Realizing this, Africa undertook in August 1964, with the help of Unesco and the Economic Commission for Africa, to establish a fifteen-year plan from 1965 to 1980 for the development of scientific research centred on natural resources, the all-embrac­ing base for scientific research if the military content of research is set aside.

But even more than in education, the African start in science faces serious initial handicaps. In the first place, while all African countries have a minister of education, a national education budget and thus a focal point for long-range educational projec­tions and planning, none of the forty-one countries except the United Arab Republic has a minister of science or (apart from G h a n a in this case) a national research budget. Thus, a tradition is lacking and, unlike the area of education, there is not m u c h of a concrete administrative focal point around which science and research programmes and budgets could be easily planned.

The gap to be filled is not simply in history and tradition. In terms of percentage of resources set aside for research, there is also a long climb ahead. In the advanced countries somewhere around 1.25 to 4 per cent of the gross national product is set aside for research expenditures ( U . S . S . R . 4, United States 2.8, United K i n g d o m 2.4, France 1.5, Japan 1.3, Federal Republic of Germany , 1.25 per cent) with particularly steep increases during the last decade. O n this basis, if about 50 per cent of this s u m is assumed to be for military purposes in the case of the major powers, the n o r m of research expenditures for the developed countries ranges from 1 to 2 per cent of the gross national product. In India, at present, 0.2 per cent of the gross national product is being allocated for research and, during the fourth plan period from 1966 to 1971, it is proposed to double this allocation to 0.4 per cent. W h a t evidence is at hand indicates an even lower allocation in Africa.

Finally, the scientific manpower concerned with research is the key element in scientific research. In every research team, there is the senior research specialist, the post-graduate researcher and the technician. Taking the first two levels of research specialists and university science professors and lecturers as 'scientific personnel', in developed countries there is an average of 1,000 scientists per million of population. In Africa today, very rough m a x i m u m estimates indicate a total of 10,000 scientists, giving an average of 40 scientists per million of population.

138

Planned development of scientific research in Africa

THE LAGOS PLAN FOR AFRICAN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

It is against this general background that a plan for the development of scientific research in Africa has been worked out by the countries in what has been termed the Lagos Plan.1 This plan calls for carefully considered action at the level of each country, at the level of the African continent as a whole, and at the level of the inter­national community—notably the scientific community. T h e plan rightly makes no such logical classification, because one form of action merges into another and each line of action is buttressed and supported by others. But for convenience of presenta­tion, the three lines of action m a y be examined consecutively.

Country planning

The start of the plan is, naturally, at the country level. Each of the forty-one States and territories has undertaken to work out a national programme involving seven major actions to develop scientific research in the context of the country's educational and natural resources and financial structure, and adapted to its over-all social and economic development plan:

National research body. First, as an initial measure and to provide an institutional and administrative focus n o w Jacking, each country will establish a national research body, in the form of a national research council, a national research centre, or an academy of science or other body suited to local circumstances, for the purpose of planning, directing and co-ordinating all scientific research in the country. T o discharge this function effectively, the body must have close and well-defined links both with the country's planning authority and the users of the results of research—government ministries, agricultural establishments, public industries and private firms. It will be the task of the body to establish priorities and a proper balance a m o n g different types, sectors and levels of research. In the selection and formulation of research projects, six criteria are laid d o w n covering minimization of costs, conservation of supplies, innovation in techniques, multipier effect on development and complementarity and consistency concerning other aspects of resource use.

National research budget. The second and accompanying step is the establishment of a national research budget for operation by the national research body. The budget will be established by the research committee or group of the national planning authority on the basis of: (a) the strategic nature of research investment; (b) the studies and research demands of the prospective consumers of research results in the country; (c) the balances that need to be maintained a m o n g various types and categories of research expenditure. Pending the results of such detailed studies by each country, a target of 0.5 per cent of the gross national product or 6 per cent of the total investment budget is to be used as a guideline for the immediate future. This target is low in comparison with the current percentage in other regions and is to be reviewed by 1970. It involves a total African allocation to research of about $200 million in 1970 rising

1. International Conference on the Organization of Research and Training in Africa in Relation to the Study, Conservation and Utilization of Natural Resources, Outline of a Plan for Scientific Research and Training in Africa, Unesco, Paris, 1964.

139

M . S. Adiseshiah

to $320 million in 1980, if this low percentage is maintained. T h e Addis A b a b a Educational Plan, referred to earlier, called for a certain amount of fundamental research in universities in its financial provisions, rising from $40 million in 1970 to $65 million in 1980. This means that an additional allocation for research rising from $ 160 million in 1970 to $260 million in 1980 must be envisaged. Those targets for the post-1970 period do not conform to the scientific m a n p o w e r goals and institutionaliz­ing of research embodied in the plan, and will require review and upward revision by that date.

National research manpower register. The third national action calls for each country to m a k e a survey of its scientific m a n p o w e r resources and forecast its needs in terms not only of university and secondary school science teachers (this has already been done on an African scale at Addis A b a b a and is being rapidly incorporated into national m a n p o w e r registers), but also in terms of the African research pyramid, established as a model in the LagosJPlan, of one senior research specialist, three post-graduate researchers and two technicians. It is assumed that the number of lower level personnel will increase as the research project approaches the end of the applied or developmental spectrum. O n a very rough estimate, as stated earlier, it is believed that there are 10,000 university science teachers and scientific researchers working outside the university at the first two levels of the pyramid. In computing scientists for research purposes, only these three groups are included, because scientists in secondary schools are not normally engaged in research. This m a y be an over-generalization, as is the assumption that all university teachers are engaged in some research. But for planning purposes, the assumption is valid. T o guide the establishment of the national scientific research manpower registers (covering the three groups just referred to), it has been decided to use an African target of 200 scientists per million of the population, which will call for 55,000 scientists in 1970 and 65,000 in 1980. This is an ambitious goal involving a five- to sixfold increase in scientific manpower for research purposes. But in terms of the two goals in the over-all educational plan for Africa, viz. (a) a 60 : 40 ratio of science to non-science students in African universities, and (b) a total student enrolment of 110,000 in 1970 rising to 238,000 in 1980 in the universities, the target of 200 scientists per million is modest. For 1970 will see around 16,000 science graduates and 1980 around 35,000. If no more than 50 per cent of these enter the scientific research m a n p o w e r pool, the target will be greatly exceeded.

National career research service. T h e fourth action is for each country to set u p a scientific research service, and to legislate for it as a means of attracting, expanding and maintaining its research personnel. This statute for career research scientists provides for a chain of command—junior researcher w h o has just graduated, senior researcher w h o has his doctorate with several years of research, research leader heading a laboratory or department, director of an institute or dean of university faculty, head of institute or institutes of higher learning, national leaders as m e m b e r s of the supreme science body, on to the highest honorary positions in the scientific life of the State. T h e legislation is to provide for upgrading the salaries of the research personnel, regulate their recruitment and assure their promotion and career. Further, in each country and at least for an initial period, special financial inducements are to be offered to science students, researchers and teachers, to increase their number and

140

Planned development of scientific research in Africa

maintain them in their specialized field. These measures will also help to stop the drain of scientists from the countries.1

National institutes of natural resources. The fifth stage in the national plan is for each country, and in the case of small countries for a group of countries, to establish a national or sub-regional institute of applied research on natural resources. Such an institute would be multi-disciplinary, bringing together teams of specialists in the various disciplines such as hydrology, soil science and ecology, their relative emphases and special purposes varying with national circumstances. This concerted approach will deal with water, vegetation, soils, mineral prospecting and plant cover which are associated problems and must be handled together. T h e technique of research in such an institute will be oriented towards fundamental research because that is the key to research processes which involve the other kinds of research—pure research, applied research and, in s o m e cases, development research. Further, the critical m i n i m u m of staff and resources required for such an institute, the trend towards economic planning at the sub-regional level in Africa and the extra-national quality of scientific research, point to the need, in some cases, for the institute to group a number of countries into a sub-regional institute. This structure of national and sub-regional institutes will be supported by centres of scientific and technical documentation as essential infra-structural services to African research. There are to be at least three such centres in the continent during this plan period.

National science education. T h e sixth action to be undertaken by each country is to carry out the speedy expansion, programme reform and curricular revision of educa­tional and scientific establishments decided upon in the Addis A b a b a educational plan, so that the number of trained scientists will be increased rapidly in each country. Reference has been m a d e to the targets for university student enrolment; similar Addis A b a b a targets for second-level and higher education establishments that train technicians and science teachers are reasserted with a renewed determination to attain these levels quickly. In addition, the m o r e difficult process of developing new approaches to science teaching, including the teaching of science at early stages in schools and the use of realistic methods of practical and experimental work, are emphasized. In this context, each country is required to examine and adapt to its development programme its science curriculum as related to the study and utilization of natural resources, including the interrelationship of the natural resources disciplines.

National science consciousness. T h e seventh action to be taken by each country — action aimed at making and keeping African society a scientific society, action aimed at implanting science in the soil and culture of Africa—flows naturally out of the sixth directive referred to. For this task, African scientists are required to take the leading role in creating a social awareness of science, using for this purpose the increasingly important media of mass communication: radio, press, television and films. In particular, the importance of natural resources and the role of sciepce in their development are to be incorporated into primary and secondary education programmes and Unesco's world literacy campaign as it operates in the African

1. See the article by Charles V . Kidd entitled 'The Growth of Science and the Distribution of Scientists among Nations', in Impact, Vol. X I V (1964), N o . 1, pp. 5-18.

141

M . S. Adiseshiah

countries. In addition, of course, science associations, sience clubs, science m u s e u m s , libraries and travelling exhibitions are to be actively developed with the same broad objective. T o carry out all this vast programme of creating public science conscious­ness, governments are required to recognize their specific responsibility, particularly in its financing.

Continental programme

The Lagos Plan also calls for action at the continental level. All-African programmes and inter-African co-operation in scientific research are required not only by its subject matter—natural resources—and its techniques, but also by the present national fron­tiers of the continent. A n d a ready instrument for such co-operation exists in the Organization of African Unity ( O A U ) which unites all the independent States of Africa for purposes set forth in its charter. Such continental programmes to be undertaken by the countries and O A U are established in four directions.

An African committee on natural resources. It is true that the expoitation and utilization of its resources in time and space is a matter for decision by each country. But conti­nent-wide co-operation is needed for a policy on resources, going beyond their research use and application, a balanced picture of the resources open to the African States, a comparison of methods used and standardization and harmonization of terminology, techniques and maps . It is also implied by the very nature of certain branches of research : climatology, seismology, geochemistry and geophysics, studies of the great river basins and major tectonic features. T o this end, a Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Resources is to be established by the Organization of African Unity with the co-operation of Unesco, with its universal mandate and experience in basic research on natural resources, as well as the Economic Commission for Africa and other appropriate United Nations agencies. The basic principles which will govern the functioning of the committee will, of course, include equality a m o n g all partici­pating countries and complete sovereignty over their resources.

An African convention on conservation. T h e second all-African programme relates to conservation of natural resources. A rational and long-term study of the development and utilization of resources requires an estimate of the rate at which they will be exhausted, in the case of mineral resources, and the rate at which they will be renewed, in the case of animal or vegetal resources. T h e purpose of conservation is to prevent the deterioration of m a n ' s entire biological environment and to establish a suitable rhythm for exploiting its components. The question of the conservation of wild species and their habitats is particularly important in Africa, where natural balances are especially precarious. Hence, the 1933 convention on the conservation of the flora and fauna of Africa is to be revised and brought into line with the scientific, technical and h u m a n problems of conservation in the African countries of today. The Organization of African Unity will undertake this normative action and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, with the help of Unesco and F A O , will prepare for it a preliminary draft text for this purpose.

An African exchange of scientists. The third inter-African co-operative p r o g r a m m e concerns the shortage of training and research institutes in Africa and the limited

142

Planned development of scientific research in Africa

number of research specialists and scientists available in terms of needs. There is need, therefore, to pool African scientific resources and assure their m a x i m u m use. For this purpose, each African scientific training and research institute is to set aside a certain number of places for specialists from other African countries and each country is to develop a programme for the interchange of science professors and research specialists within the continent.

An African programme of natural resources institutes. T h e fourth continental action is aimed at a rationalization of research institutions in the natural resources field in Africa—both those n o w existing and the full complex of institutions that the continent will need. Such institutions are envisaged in over twenty fields of scientific research on natural resources. They include: cartography, hydrology, energy resources, arid zone, savannah zone, humid tropical zone, geophysics and seismology, mining and economic geology, vulcanology, soil sciences, irrigation and drainage, oceanography and marine biology, plant pests and diseases, forestry, taxonomy and ecology, flora and fauna including wild life management, veterinary science, range management, limnology, tropical and subtropical medicine and parasitology, cancer research, building materials and documentation. It is proposed that, during the plan period, inter-African inter­national institutes in these fields should be established by selecting existing institutes or developing new ones on a fairly equitable geographical distribution basis over the African continent. This kind of concentration and rationalization will enable a few high-level research institutions to be developed in the continent and will attract to it some of the best scientific talent from Africa and outside.

International co-operation

N o plan of this size and importance can be conceived and carried out effectively without the scientific, intellectual and financial co-operation of countries from outside Africa with those of the continent. A t the international level, four specific guidelines are suggested to assure this international flow of resources—intellectual and financial — between the African and non-African countries.

Co-operation between Unesco and O A U . First, to ensure a suitable framework for such co-operation, Unesco and O A U are to enter into a formal agreement concerning regular consultation, exchange of information, mutual representation at meetings and joint action and joint commissions on all matters of c o m m o n interest. Unesco's science programmes are carried out by its Department of Advancement of Science and the Department of Application of Science to Development. O A U ' s Scientific, Technical and Research Commission is the instrument for its research programmes and it is at this level that Unesco's departments and O A U ' s commission can work together to accelerate and harmonize international co-operation in scientific research.

Co-operation between Africa and Asia, the Americas and Europe. Second, Unesco's M e m b e r States in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, are called u p o n to help, through financial and technical assistance, the African States in carrying out this plan. There is a particular call to scientists in the other four continents to assist newly-established universities and institutes, those being planned and those decided on at Lagos, with their staffing problems. In fact, bilateral scientific assistance has opened

143

M . S. Adiseshiah

new vistas in the seven national actions and the four inter-African programmes decided upon at Lagos.

Co-operation between Africa and Unesco and the United Nations. The third guideline involves Unesco, the Economic Commission for Africa, F A O and other United Nations agencies, whose aid and co-operation can n o w be tailored to the specific targets, objectives and projects and programmes in the African plan. T o Unesco, there is a particular and special call for co-operation in the realization of the plan in three fields. First is the area of studies—studies on scientific and research m a n p o w e r in Africa, African research budgets and the relationship of research to economic develop­ment. Second is the co-operation required in the planning and organization of science at the national level, in the establishment of national research organs and budgets and, at the regional level, in aid to O A U in its tasks. Third is the financial and technical co-operation with African countries in setting up national and sub-regional institutes of applied research—in natural resources and its m a n y specialized fields.

Co-operation in international scientific programmes. Finally, African countries are required to establish African associations of the great scientific disciplines federated in the International Council of Scientific Unions and assure African participation in the major international scientific programmes—such as the International Hydrological Decade, the Upper Mantle Project, the International Biological P r o g r a m m e and the International Océanographie Research Programme.

C A N THE PLAN BE REALIZED?

Such is the African blueprint for the development of scientific research in Africa. It is breath-taking in the rhythm of scientific development it envisages, a fivefold increase in the next fifteen years as compared to the past pace of its scientific development. C a n this be achieved w h e n the rhythm of the industrialized countries shows merely a doubling of science during that same time-span ? In other words, can Africa more than double during the plan period the current scientific pace of Europe and North A m e ­rica ? T h e answer to that question must be found outside the domain of science and scientific research in the nature of Africa today and its destiny that it is deciding for itself—with the co-operation of all its well-wishers from outside Africa.

144

R . Revelle Oceans, science and m e n

At its second session in 1962, the Intergovernmental Océanographie Commission (IOC) decided that a general scientific framework for world ocean study should be prepared, as a basis for international co-operative programmes in the marine sciences. The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) was asked to undertake this task, in co-operation with interested United Nations agencies and with the commission's Advisory Committee on Marine Resources Research (ACMRR). (Members of this committee also advise the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.) SCOR appointed a working group consisting of Dr. G . E . R . Deacon of the United Kingdom and Professor Vladimir Kort of the U.S.S.R., with Professor Revelle as chairman; a parallel working group under Dr. Cushing of the United Kingdom was appointed by A C M R R . Draft reports from both groups were accepted by IOC at its third session in June 1964 as basic working documents for the general scientific framework for world ocean study. The following article was prepared by Dr. Revelle to serve as a broad introduction to these documents. In it he has attempted to show the sweep and diversity of the marine sciences, to suggest some of the scientific tools needed to study them, and to examine the economic benefits that might result from greater knowledge of the sea—in short, to arouse interest among administrators and to stimulate thinking among oceanographers.

O C E A N O G R A P H Y AS A SCIENCE

Oceanography is the scientific study of that part of the earth which is covered with sea water. Its objective is to increase h u m a n understanding of all aspects of the oceans—the properties and behaviour of the ocean water, the nature of living creatures in the sea, the interactions between the waters, the air above them, and the solid earth beneath, and the shape and structure of the ocean basins. Because the seas cover 71 per cent of the globe, oceanography is a planetary science, concerned in m a n y ways with the earth as a whole. O n e of its questions is w h y the earth has such large quantities of liquid water in contrast to the other planets of our solar system.

Unlike physics, which is the study of matter in all its forms, or chemistry, the study of matter in molecular forms, oceanography is not a universal science. In principle,

145

Impact, Vol. XTV (1964), N o . 3

R . Revelle

the laws of physics hold good everywhere and at all times; the chemist's discoveries are valid whenever and wherever molecules can exist. But oceanography consists of the application of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics to the study of a particular object in space and time: the oceans of our planet. In this sense, it is related to astronomy, the study of bodies outside the earth, and to geology, whose object of study is chiefly the solid outer part of the earth. In c o m m o n with these other sciences of the real world, the present condition of its object of study has been largely deter­mined by events in the distant past. Thus oceanography is concerned not only with things as they are, but also with what the oceans and marine plants and animals were like in past times.

T h e physicist can m a k e his o w n world by conducting controlled experiments in his laboratory. The applied mathematician can analyse the behaviour of imaginary fluids. But the astronomer with his telescope, the geologist with his hand lens and the oceanographer on his ship must look at the world as it actually exists. For the physicist and the applied mathematician, there are m a n y possible oceans. For the oceanographer, there is one—the earth ocean, with all its present vastness and complexity, and its long and difficultly decipherable history.

T h e oceanographer often formulates hypotheses about the ocean through mathe­matical analyses and laboratory experiments. But the validity of these hypotheses can be tested only by observations of the real ocean. Oceanography is the science that is done at sea.

What are the oceans like ?

The motions of the waters. The oceans are restless—every drop of sea water in the world is constantly in motion. There is a great variety of motions, from the ever changing waves on the surface to the sluggish currents deep within the sea; from the majestic flow of great ocean rivers, such as the Gulf Stream in the western Atlantic and the Black Current off Japan, to the swift tidal streams of harbour mouths. M u c h of the motion is swirling and irregular, like smoke slowly drifting, but in all cases the water particles follow nearly horizontal paths. This is so because, on a planetary scale, the oceans are only a thin film over the globe. This film itself is divided into thinner films overlying one another and separated by differences in the density of the water.

O n e might suppose that the continual motion of the waters would result in a thorough mixing, so that the oceans would be the same everywhere. In fact, this is not the case. Other processes bring about differences between water masses, and these differences are maintained by the layering, or stratification, of the sea. If one takes a sounding off Hawaii he will find, a mile beneath the tropical surface, water with a temperature close to freezing. This water sank from the surface near Antarctica, thousands of years ago ; since that time it has retained its Antarctic temperatures as it slowly travelled to the North Pacific.

The ways of life in the sea. The differences in the properties of the waters are reflected in variations of fertility between different parts of the sea. Off Peru, in a strip of ocean a hundred miles wide and a thousand miles long, the water near the surface forms a green permanent pasture, as productive for animal life as the blackest soil of the Ukraine. In the central basins of the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, the purplish

146

Oceans, science and men

blue colour and the clarity of the waters show that they are an oceanic desert, nearly as barren as the Sahara.

The oceans are a gentle physical environment for living things, and life on earth probably began in shallow seas about 2 thousand million years ago. Today there are hundreds of thousands of different kinds of sea creatures, ranging from the micro­scopic plants of the open sea and the grasses and algae of shallow waters, which are the basic food supply for all marine animals, to the giant whales—the largest animals that have ever lived. Between these extremes is a web of life in which most animals are both predator and prey, and the final fate of all is to be food for bacteria. But life in the ocean is more than a relentless search for food and a desperate avoidance of enemies. S o m e species of shrimps and small fishes live by providing services to others. These 'cleaners' of the sea swim in and out of the mouths and through the gill slits of their clients, removing and eating parasites and disease-causing debris.

Biologists since the time of Aristotle have been fascinated by the wonderful complexity of the ways of life in the sea. Research on the physiology, life histories, distribution, behaviour and evolution of marine organisms forms one of the classical fields of biology. The need for biological knowledge is greater today than ever before, because of the rapid expansion of fisheries throughout the world ocean.

The earth beneath the sea. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the ocean basins is that they exist, that large volumes of water have been gathered together on the surface of our planet in great depressions. Thirty years ago most geologists thought of the oceans and the continents as 'permanent' features of the earth's surface, which existed in substantially their present form long before the beginning of the geolo­gic record written in the rocks. Through this convenient d o g m a , the question of oceanic and continental origins could be removed from the realm of scientific investigation and relegated to the limbo of speculation. T h e ocean floors were generally believed to be a featureless and uninteresting plain, covered with a thick blanket of m u d that had accumulated slowly and continuously over thousands of millions of years.

During the last two decades, this picture has radically changed. Although our knowledge is still incomplete, w e have learned enough to realize that the topography of the ocean floors is highly complex, both on the large scale and the small, and that this complexity reflects a long and varied history. W e n o w believe that the existence of the ocean basins and of the waters which fill them is intimately related to the structure of the outer layers of the earth ; the history of the oceans cannot be separated from the history of the earth as a whole.

Studies of the sediments and rocks beneath the deep sea have yielded revolutionary insights into this history. The earth's crust is thin under the oceans, and the great mass of rock called the mantle, which makes u p most of the body of our planet and encloses its molten core, is easier to study at sea than on land. B y mapping the shape of the sea floor and measuring variations in the force of gravity, the earth's magnetic field, the heat coming from the interior and the acoustic properties of the rocks, w e are beginning to get a picture of the processes that have shifted the continents and shaped the ocean basins. S o m e geologists n o w believe that the mantle rocks beneath the ocean are slowly churning in great cylindrical wheels thousands of miles in dia­meter. Others have suggested that m a n y times during the lifetime of our planet the suboceanic rocky crust has been renewed by giant volcanic eruptions.

M u c h of the evidence for these ideas is indirect and uncertain. Moreover, no rocks

147

R . Revelle

or sediments have yet been collected from the deep sea floor which are more than 100 million years old. This is presumably a small fraction of the time during which oceans and continents have existed.

W e have been able to determine only those properties of the earth's crust beneath the blanket of sediments that can be measured at a distance. Within the next few decades, however, it will almost surely become possible to drill deep holes through the thin layers of oceanic sediments into the underlying rocks, and to collect core samples w e can feel, see and analyse. These cores will give us a new level of insight into the nature of the earth beneath the sea. Then, perhaps, it will become possible to carry our history back to the days when the oceans and the continents were young, perhaps even to the time when life began in the shallow seas.

Describing the ocean

The incompleteness of present knowledge. Every science of the real world must begin by describing what that world is actually like. This task is far from complete in oceano­graphy. Our m a p s of the ocean floor are about equal in accuracy and degree of detail to the maps of the land surface of the earth published 250 years ago. Though w e k n o w in general the average direction and volume of the major currents near the sea surface, w e are unable to describe the changes of these currents from season to season or from year to year. W e k n o w that the Gulf Stream behaves like a river embedded in the sea, and that this river meanders over its bed, shrinks and swells from time to time, and changes in speed and direction. But w e cannot say where the Gulf Stream was on a particular afternoon five years ago. In this respect, our sister science of meteorology is far ahead of us, for the meteorologist plots every day the direction and speed of the winds over the entire Northern Hemisphere.

W e have only fragments of knowledge of the currents beneath the sea surface. For example, w e have learned, from direct measurements with current meters and buoys, that 200 feet beneath the surface along the equator in the Pacific Ocean a thin broad ribbon of water flows steadily eastward, at a speed of two to three miles an hour, under the westward-moving surface current. Other measurements show that the waters elsewhere in the depths sometimes m o v e equally rapidly. But no one knows h o w long these rapid motions persist, h o w m u c h water moves in a particular direction at a particular time, or the ways in which the direction and speed of motion change with time.

During the past hundred years, thousands of different kinds of fishes and other marine animals have been collected, described and classified. But n e w species are found nearly every time a research ship visits the poorly-explored waters of the Southern Hemisphere, or lowers a trawl 2,000 metres beneath the surface in the North Pacific. W e are practically certain that m a n y deep sea creatures cannot be caught with our present collecting gear. Fishermen have been taking a harvest from the sea for thousands of years, but even today no one can estimate within a factor of ten h o w m a n y fish live in the ocean.

Observations and measurement. T o describe the ocean, w e must observe and measure it. This is not as easy as it sounds. Anyone w h o has taken a sea voyage or looked at the wavy surface of the ocean from the beach realizes what a nearly impenetrable curtain the surface is. Visible light travels only a short distance in sea water without

148

Oceans, science and men

becoming so scattered and attenuated that images cannot be recognized. Sound is the only kind of man-generated energy that is propagated for longer distances in sea water than in air. But sound waves are usually badly bent and distorted as they move through the water, and the ocean rings with echoes like a poorly designed auditorium.

Though the salt in h u m a n blood gives evidence that our remote ancestors were sea creatures, h u m a n beings are land animals. They are able to enter the depths of the sea only with elaborate oxygen-carrying and pressure-protective devices. The invention, during the Second World W a r , of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus has enabled scientists as well as laymen to m a k e short visits to the upper layers of the underwater world. W e are all familiar through photographs with some of the wonders that can be seen in these layers. A very few explorers have been able to visit the oceanic abyss, even d o w n to the greatest depths, in the free-floating under­water balloons called bathyscaphes. Others have visited lesser depths in small sub­marine vehicles. But the scientific information thus obtained has so far been dis­appointingly meagre, though the promise of the future is large. At present, however, measurements below the sea surface must be m a d e chiefly with remote self-operating instruments used from surface ships. Consequently, our picture of what the ocean is like is analogous to that which could be obtained on land by travelling in a balloon above a continuous deck of clouds.

Océanographie instruments have been rapidly improved during the last twenty years, through taking advantage of the great advances in electronic and related kinds of engineering. M a n y kinds of measurements can n o w be m a d e which were impossible before the Second World W a r . The rate at which s o m e types of data can be collected has increased to the point where the measurements have become so numerous that they can be studied only after being combined and correlated in large computing machines.

Our descriptions must be abstract. M a n y instruments used today give a virtually continuous time record at a point in space, but the distance between measuring points is still very large compared to the detailed complexity of the ocean. W e are faced here with the basic dilemma of scientific description. Whether w e are investigating a single tree or an entire ocean, a complete description of our object of study would fill so m a n y volumes that it would be larger than the object itself, and hence useless for h u m a n comprehension. The dilemma is worsened when we are dealing with some­thing like a tree or an ocean that is constantly changing.

T o describe our object of study in humanly meaningful terms, our description must be abstract. It must be a grossly simplified model of the thing itself, designed to increase our knowledge of certain relationships. Like a fisherman casting his seine, the scientist making his measurements beneath the sea surface expects to catch only those phenomena which are so large that they cannot slip through the meshes of his net of observations.

The need for understanding

Every science worthy of the n a m e must do more than describe its object of study. Its primary aim must be understanding, by which w e m e a n the finding of underlying relationships between phenomena. It is not enough to m a p the position and measure the speed of the Gulf Stream. W e want to know what driving forces m o v e the water,

149

R . Revelle

and what forces resist the motion. Even if w e had an accurate and detailed m a p of the shape of the ocean floor, w e would still need to k n o w the processes, deep within the earth, which have deformed our planet's surface to produce the ocean basins and the continental masses. A hundred years from n o w , new species of marine animals will still be found in out-of-the-way places. But a more interesting problem is to understand why w e have already found so m a n y different kinds. W h a t are the relation­ships of oceanic animals to their watery environment, and to each other, that permit creatures with a vast diversity of form, size and behaviour to live in balanced equilibrium side by side? Even if w e could take an accurate census of the sea's fishes, fishermen would still want to k n o w h o w m a n y fish they can catch year after year without depleting the stocks. T o answer this question, w e need to understand, a m o n g other things, the processes that m a k e some parts of the ocean fertile pastures and others sterile deserts, and the relationships between the production of organic matter by marine plants and the food supply of fishes.

Why study the oceans?

W h y do w e want to study the ocean ? There are several so-called practical reasons, for the ocean is useful to h u m a n beings in m a n y ways.

In the long run, one of the most important uses of the ocean m a y be as a source of h u m a n protein food. At present two-thirds of the earth's people suffer in greater or less degree from the deficiency diseases caused by a lack of animal protein in their diets. Protein deficiency is particularly serious for children, because it prevents proper physical and mental development, but it also lowers the vitality and shortens the lives of adults. The amount of animal protein needed for today's world population could be obtained by a 30 per cent increase in the world fish catch, from about 41 million tons to 53 million tons a year. Unless other sources of animal-like proteins can be found, the catch will need to be doubled within the next twenty-five years to keep up with the growth in h u m a n population. It is by no means clear that such a doubling is possible. But it is certain that it cannot be accomplished on a sustained basis unless w e obtain far more knowledge than w e n o w possess of the ocean waters and the plants and animals they contain. A doubling of the world fish catch would be worth m a n y thousands of millions of dollars each year. The annual cost of the necessary research could be several hundred million dollars.

H u m a n needs for protein food, national needs for security, and society's require­ments for greater knowledge of weather and climate are a m o n g the reasons for the marked increase of governmental support of the marine sciences in recent years. But h u m a n beings also have a need for understanding for its o w n sake. T h e sheer excitement of finding out what has never been known before is the chief motivation of oceanographers. They achieve a special satisfaction when they are able to fit m a n y fragments of new knowledge together into a unified and consistent picture that can be used to explain what was previously not understood.

INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION IN O C E A N O G R A P H Y

Just as all m e n breathe the same air, and a storm over N e w England m a y have begun off Japan, so the ocean waters are indivisible, and events in any part of the sea even-

150

Oceans, science and m e n

tually have profound effects at great distances. T h e scientific study of the sea is thus a natural field of international scientific co-operation. Moreover, such co-operation is necessary if h u m a n understanding of the oceans is to keep pace with h u m a n needs. T h e high seas belong to no m a n and no nation, yet they are used by m a n y m e n and m a n y nations.

International co-operation in science is not an end in itself, but serves other ends. It should be undertaken only when the s u m of scientific, political and economic benefits exceeds the cost. These benefits cannot be separated in practice. Scientific co-operation will not be effective for any purpose unless it is good science, yet govern­ments are unlikely to support it unless it serves economic and political purposes, as well as scientific ones.

Kinds of co-operation

Experience during the last fifteen years has shown at least nine areas where scientific benefits can be gained from international co-operation in the study of the world ocean : speeding up the exploration of little-known regions; intercalibration of methods; synoptic studies of air-sea interaction; studies of fluctuations in sea level; biological censuses in the ocean; studies of phenomena of special areas; deep sea mapping; data exchange; and exchanges between individual scientists.

Speeding up exploration. The International Indian Ocean Expedition and the Inter­national Co-operative Investigations of the Tropical Atlantic are examples of the way in which international co-operation can quicken and intensify the exploration of a little-known part of the ocean. Other opportunities lie in the Arctic, the South Atlantic, and the South Pacific. This kind of océanographie co-operation is gradually becoming less important, as the age of descriptive exploration of the oceans comes to a close. But there are still very large areas where the ocean waters, their populations of living things, and the underlying sea floor are very little k n o w n . During the past hundred years, research and survey vessels have m a d e exploratory traverses, which have given some knowledge of the kinds of animals and plants and the gross features of the bottom topography. But the powerful new tools of oceanic exploration have hardly been used in these remote regions. A massive assault on the u n k n o w n areas by modern océano­graphie ships of several countries, working in close co-ordination, would yield large returns.

Intercalibration of methods. T o be able to m a p the distribution of physical and chemical properties in the sea, the sizes of marine populations, or the characteristics of the ocean floor, w e need to be sure that the methods of measurement used in different countries and laboratories are comparable. International agreement must be reached on what is being measured and on the precision and accuracy of different methods. T w o examples m a y be cited.

Marine plants contain m a n y pigments. In attempting to determine the plant pigment content of the ocean, w e need to k n o w , with each commonly used method, just which pigments are being measured, and in what proportions. H o w m u c h is dissolved and h o w m u c h is in particulate form, and what are the sizes of the particles ?

For m a n y years, oceanographers have believed that the determination of dissolved oxygen was one of the easiest and most accurate of all chemical measurements of

151

R . Revelle

ocean waters. It turns out that the methods used by different laboratories, even in one country, m a y give results on the same water that differ by 5 to 10 per cent. W h e n these methods are used routinely on shipboard, the precision is m u c h less than had previously been thought. W e do not yet k n o w the magnitude of the differences that would be obtained in an analysis on an American vessel compared to a Soviet, an Australian, or a British measurement of the same water sample.

Synoptic studies of air-sea interaction. A major part of the energy of storms and winds is transmitted from the sun to the atmosphere through the ocean. Air heated by contact with the w a r m ocean surface carries water vapour aloft. A s the rising air cools, the vapour condenses, releasing its latent heat, and the air expands and rises still further. The density distribution in the atmosphere is thus grossly perturbed. Enormous amounts of energy enter the air through this mechanism of evaporation at the sea surface and condensation aloft. Under the constraints exerted by the rotation of the earth, this energy contributes to the formation of the hurricanes of the tropics and the cyclonic storms of mid-latitudes.

T h e winds, in turn, drive the surface currents of the sea, thereby determining the location of the w a r m water masses that are the principal regions of evaporation, and hence of energy transfer, from the sea to the air. In this way , the ocean and the atmo­sphere form an inter-acting or feed-back system on a very large scale. Recent meteoro­logical studies show that changes in hemispheric weather patterns over periods of weeks to years can be related to changes in the temperature distribution of the water layers near the surface of the sea. T o study these changes and the accompanying atmospheric processes requires measurements at m a n y points over vast areas—areas as wide and as long as an ocean. N o nation by itself has sufficient research ships or oceanographers to obtain all the needed data. Co-operation a m o n g oceanographers and meteorologists of different countries is essential.

Fluctuations in sea level. Beside these interrelated processes in the sea and the air, m a n y other oceanic phenomena occur on an ocean-wide or global scale. Examples are the tides and the seasonal and secular changes in sea level. T o understand sea level changes, tide gauge measurements from well-established reference levels, together with measurements of barometric pressure and water temperature and salinity, need to be m a d e over long periods at m a n y places, including remote locations where tide gauges are not normally maintained. International planning and co-operation are required to develop and maintain a world-wide network of measuring stations.

Biological censuses. H o w m a n y fish are in the sea, and what is the rate of turnover? W h a t weight of different kinds of fish can be produced in a given time? Individual species of fishes and invertebrates of the high seas are widely distributed, and some of them wander over great distances. Their distribution and abundance change with changes in the oceanic environment. T o find the sizes and distributions of these populations and their interrelationships is important to the rapid development, and indispensable for the conservation, of the world's fisheries. International co-operation on a systematic basis among marine biologists is required.

Phenomena of special areas. Oceanographers throughout the world are interested in phenomena that occur only in limited areas near the coasts of a few countries or under

152

Oceans, science and m e n

their control. Coral atolls are dramatic examples—the true Darwinian atolls are found only in the tropical Pacific and the tropical Indian Ocean. D e e p sea trenches, the profoundest abysses of the sea, find their extreme expression in the western Pacific, off the Tonga and Kermadec Islands, the Philippines, Japan, the Kurile Islands and G u a m . Western boundary currents, in which broad masses of moving water are pinched together to form a narrow high-speed jet, occur only on the western sides of oceans. The Gulf Stream off the United States east coast and the Kuroshio east of Japan are famous examples, and similar currents exist off the Philippines, N e w Guinea, Brazil and Somalia. These are of interest to oceanographers everywhere, but they can be studied best in co-operation with the people w h o live close to them. The Americans are in a peculiarly good position to study the Gulf Stream, and in a poor position to study the Kuroshio. For the Japanese, the situation is reversed. Co-operative studies leading to inter-comparisons between these two currents could have great scientific value.

M o n s o o n changes of winds and ocean currents occur principally in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. These phenomena can give us an insight into the transient state of ocean currents—how they change with the changing winds. They can be studied best in co-operation with the neighbouring nations.

The International Convention on the Continental Shelf requires that scientists from other countries shall ask permission of the coastal State before beginning an investigation of the continental shelf. The wording of the convention strongly implies that the coastal State should grant this permission, provided its o w n scientists can co-operate in the investigation.

Mapping the ocean floor. Systematic and detailed m a p s of the topography of the ocean floor would have m a n y scientific and other values. But the task of making such m a p s will require operation over m a n y years of several dozen highly equipped vessels and an international navigation network. If this great task could be shared a m o n g all interested countries, the expense to any one country would be far less burden­some.

In addition to the bottom topography, w e are concerned with mapping what lies beneath the sea floor. Seismic refraction studies during the past fifteen years have provided some information about the thickness of sediments. This method gives only averages for lines 50 to 100 kilometres long, and it is so cumbersome that wide­spread coverage could not be achieved in the near future. The recently-developed technique of seismic reflection profiling permits a continuous cross-section of sediment stratification and thickness from a vessel under w a y at a few knots. This method has already yielded data along one or two hundred thousand miles of track, with the startling result that large variations are observed in the thickness of the sediment layer. Underneath the sediments the topography seems to be rough and, in some places, mountainous. The variations in sediment thickness have not yet found explanation in any of our current ideas about the nature of the sea floor. W e must assume that one or more u n k n o w n processes have controlled the deposition of sediment and the rough­ness of the underlying rocky layer. The seismic reflection method could easily be used on ships of m a n y nations to give an ocean-wide coverage which should yield new insights into this problem.

Recent drilling operations have demonstrated the feasibility of drilling through and sampling the entire sedimentary column in the deep sea. B y centring part of an

153

R . Revelle

oceanic drilling programme around the problems raised by the seismic reflection results, and by prompt evaluation of the cores from each site to guide selection of the next drilling location, w e could ensure a rapid rate of increase in our knowledge of the history of the oceans. Thus, a co-operative programme of seismic reflection profiling would be valuable in guiding the next leap forward in the study of the earth—drilling into the rocks beneath the sea floor.

Data exchange. T h e hydrodynamicist, the biologist, the geographer, the encyclopaedia m a k e r — m a n y kinds of people have a need for data on a world-wide or ocean-wide basis. These data should be quickly, easily and cheaply available. World Data Centres proved their value during the International Geophysical Year; continuing international co-operation to increase their usefulness is highly desirable.

Co-operation between individual scientists from different countries. All of the above kinds of co-operation require international arrangements through governments, or through scientific bodies such as the International Council of Scientific Unions. In m a n y ways, however, the most satisfactory international scientific co-operation is simply the exchange of ideas and techniques between individual scientists in different countries. This occurs through visits to each other's laboratories or participation in cruises on each other's ships, and through coming together in international scientific meetings.

Other benefits of international océanographie co-operation

The scientific benefits of international co-operation in oceanography must be balanced against the costs, not only in m o n e y , but in the diversion of scarce scientific personnel from theoretical and experimental research, and from work on smaller-scale problems of primary interest to individual countries. T h e mechanisms of international co­operation are always clumsy, requiring a great deal of time on the part of m a n y people.

Other benefits, beside scientific benefits, can be balanced against the costs. These are the increases in international understanding which result from both the planning and the operational part of co-operative efforts, and the provision of assistance to the scientific and economic progress of the less-developed countries. B y fostering scientific co-operation a m o n g oceanographers of different countries, w e are learning ways of finding agreement a m o n g citizens and statesmen. By working with each other, w e are gaining mutual understanding of the social and economic constraints that affect the thought and action of scientists in different countries.

A n océanographie ship in a foreign port, dedicated to advancing h u m a n knowledge, is one of the best ways of fostering public appreciation of science, as well as interna­tional understanding a m o n g peoples. Co-operative océanographie work between the advanced countries and the less-developed ones can help the poorer countries in several ways. First, the marine sciences have considerable practical justification. Second, oceanography is a relatively simple and easily visualized science; hence it affords a good introduction to the scientific method and the scientific enterprise. It can help the citizens of the developing countries to realize that science in fact is quite unmagical—something everybody can do, and to some degree has to do in the modern world. These countries need to develop their o w n scientific capabilities if they are ever to be able to lift themselves above dependent poverty. They cannot do

154

Oceans, science and m e n

this simply by studying other people's science; they must themselves participate in the world scientific enterprise. Because the oceans are so vast and so little known, almost any nation that borders on the sea can m a k e important contributions to oceanography, even with a modest effort. Because oceanography deals with a familiar and visible, yet mysterious part of the real world, it is an easily understood kind of science, well suited to creating public understanding of the purposes and methods of scientific research. At the same time, the less-developed countries need to learn a great deal about their bordering seas, as a basis for conservation and full development of their ocean fisheries.

The future

Looking ahead, the most urgent requirement for international oceanography is greater recognition by individual nations of the need to study the oceans as a whole. Océano­graphie investigations of the high seas are so expensive that they can be supported only by governments. The problem is to m a k e the governments aware of the needs and the potential benefits.

T h e future of the Intergovernmental Océanographie Commission will depend on its effectiveness in fostering scientific research on the world oceans. Science is done by m e n and w o m e n , not by administrative organizations, and working scientists must be convinced that an organization is serving their scientific interests before they will be willing to support it. Perhaps the most important task before the commis­sion is to help with the development of the marine sciences in each of its member countries. Oceanographers in most countries are too isolated from other earth scientists and from modern biological and chemical research. Most government support goes for relatively routine applied work related to fisheries or to coastal engineering and surveys. University research and teaching are highly fragmented and inadequately supported. T h e Intergovernmental Océanographie Commission must find means, perhaps through such devices as comparison of national reports and assignment of visiting committees to review national programmes, to build basic marine research and teaching in its m e m b e r countries. Planning of international programmes should involve not only government representatives and scientific leaders but also the scien­tists w h o are going to do the work—the young people w h o are concerned with finding out about the ocean, not in abstract or general terms, but by making actual measure­ments. T h e young scientists need to be brought together to think and talk about what they want to do, and to learn h o w to plan together those aspects of their research in which international co-operation can be helpful. International co-operative activities must be planned for several years in the future. The young scientists need to be educated to take a long view.

In coming years, w e shall need a greater degree of co-operation, not only among marine scientists of different countries but a m o n g different kinds of scientists—oceano­graphers, meteorologists, engineers, m a n y kinds of biologists, geophysicists, astro­nomers, in fact, all the scientists w h o are concerned with the earth and the solar system as they are and have been.

W e can visualize, within the next ten years, an international network of measuring buoys and bottom-mounted devices throughout the world ocean, with an inter­nationally agreed system to operate them and to disseminate the data they obtain. Ships, aeroplanes, research submarines and other vehicles will be used to study the

155

R . Revelle

ocean in new and undoubtedly expensive ways. The co-ordination of these activities will require extensive intergovernmental apparatus.

ECONOMIC BENEFITS FROM OCEANOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Economic benefits from océanographie research are of two kinds: annual savings in costs of goods and services, and increases in production.

Such public investments as dams and aqueducts can be clearly related to calculable economic returns. T h e decision to m a k e the investment can be based on relatively accurate estimates of benefit-cost ratios. This is not true for research expenditures planned over a period in the future of ten to twenty years. Experience shows that research does produce very large returns, but these are usually unpredictable in any detail. O n the other hand it is possible to foresee the kinds of changes that could be brought about by research in a particular field, and the value of these changes if they could be m a d e . Such an attempt at forecasting m a y be useful, even though the forecasts are based simply on necessarily subjective judgements rather than on quantitative and objective data. Decisions about research expenditures will be more soundly based if results from the proposed expenditures can be compared, even approximately, with the results from other uses of the same funds.

It can be expected that both new production and savings resulting from océano­graphie research will increase with time. If the rate of increase is proportional to the production or the savings, these will increase exponentially with a doubling time of T years. If the value of the annual new production or the annual savings T years from n o w is B , then when T is fifteen years, the average annual benefit over twenty years will be 0.64 B; for T = ten years, it will be 1.12 B ; and for T — seven years, 2.0 B .

A continuing international investment in oceanography at a reasonable level will be an essential component in bringing about annual savings and added annual production of m a n y thousands of millions of dollars a year over the next twenty years. Ten to fifteen years will be needed to achieve these gains and other expenditures in addition to marine research will be required if they are to be realized.

In evaluating investment decisions, economists usually discount total future returns and costs to their 'present worth', that is, their value at the present time. In our case, this is determined by the return on an investment at compound interest m a d e today that would yield the same future return as the research. The rate of interest is called the discount rate. Because the results of research are always uncertain, research expenditures are a fairly risky investment, and consequently a high discount rate should be assumed, say, 10 per cent. A dollar ten years from n o w would yield the same return as an investment today of thirty-seven cents at 10 per cent c o m p o u n d interest; hence the 'present worth' of this future dollar is thirty-seven cents. A dollar fifteen years from n o w has a present worth of only twenty-two cents.

Savings and production increases from better use of the sea will result only in part from marine research. Other expenditures will be required beside those for research itself. T h e fraction of the discounted benefits directly attributable to marine research will vary from 10 to 100 per cent, depending on the field of application. This fraction must be weighed against the cost of the research. Calculations indicate that the frac­tional return on the international investment in marine research which will probably be m a d e during the next twenty years can be four to five times larger, during those

156

Oceans, science and men

twenty years, than if the same m o n e y had been invested today at 10 per cent compound interest.

T o be conservative, such calculations should be based only on tangible and fore­seeable economic results without attempting to forecast 'break-throughs', or to include any revolutionary technical innovations. Economic values cannot be placed on the h u m a n satisfactions that will c o m e from greater understanding of the oceans and the ways of life in the sea, or on the benefits to national prestige and international under­standing that m a y be expected from international co-operation in marine sciences.

Several kinds of direct economic benefits have been omitted from the discussions in this section. For example, marine research is essential to maintaining the production of the world's fisheries at its present level, but w e have directed our attention mainly to the possibilities of increases in production. The petroleum resources of the conti­nental shelves have a large potential, but most of the required oceanic research is carried out by the oil industries with their o w n funds. Considerable savings can result from better forecast and warning systems for tsunamis and storm surges, and these also are omitted, as are the benefits to petroleum and mineral exploration on land that can c o m e from greater understanding of the geologic history of the oceans and of marine sedimentary processes.

The ocean harvest

At present, and perhaps for m a n y years to c o m e , the most important material resources of the sea are the marine plants and animals found throughout the world ocean. In Europe and North America a relatively small share (5 to 20 per cent) of the animal protein in h u m a n diets comes directly from the sea. In some other nations (especially in Asia) protein from the sea is an indispensable component of h u m a n food.

The total annual production of the world's marine fisheries increased from 25 to 40 million metric tons between 1955 and 1962. This is an increase of about 7 per cent each year—-a rate which promises to be maintained in the near future. The world's 'industrial' uses offish are increasing more rapidly than the use offish as direct food for humans . The latter, however, still shows an average growth rate of 5.5 per cent per year, more than twice the rate of growth of the world's population.

O f the total catch in 1961, about 9.6 million tons went to the production of fishmeal (used in feedstuff's for poultry and livestock, and thus providing h u m a n food indirectly) and oil. This compares with about 4 million tons in 1955, and represents a very large increase in the indirect contribution of fisheries products to h u m a n diet. Most of the fish protein eaten by a growing chicken is retained as protein in the body of the animal.

These growth rates are not likely to be maintained for very long unless oceanic investigations are conducted on a world-wide basis to find the locations and sizes of fish populations and h o w these vary with changing conditions in the sea, the ocean conditions that bring about economically catchable fish concentrations, and those aspects of their behaviour that can be exploited to reduce the costs of catching the fish.

The value of the world ocean harvest to the fishermen is n o w several thousand million dollars a year. This amount should be multiplied by five in computing the contribution to the Gross World Economic Product, since the catch about quintuples in value between the producers and the final consumers.

Within fifteen years, the addition to the Gross World Economic Product based on increased fisheries-oriented research can be equal to the present contribution from

157

R . Revelle

the ocean harvest. The necessary marine research and development could cost several hundred million dollars a year and yet be economically very beneficial.

Benefits to fisheries from marine research. Research on the ecology and biology of the organisms supporting the marine fisheries is of direct economic value in two ways.

For those fish populations being substantially exploited, it can provide both the basis of more efficient catching operations, and the basis of 'conservation' (maintaining the populations at levels which will produce m a x i m u m yields year after year). Such fish populations are n o w in the minority, but they include the most valuable species in the near-shore waters of the Northern Hemisphere, and the m o r e valuable species supporting high-seas fishing operations. With the rapid increase in the world's fisheries, additional fish populations are being utilized to the point where conservation management based on scientific understanding is required.

For the populations that are little used, or not used at all, research on their habits and their reactions to the changing sea can provide the basis for developing means to catch them cheaply, so that they can be exploited economically in large volume. Such little-used fish stocks occur, not only in distant waters, but also near the coasts of major fishing nations.

Increasing the catch offish requires the existence of sufficient additional productive potential of fish stocks accessible to the fishermen, and the existence of markets for the catch. Both of these conditions can be satisfied if the necessary research on the living resources of the sea and methods of harvesting them is carried out.

Unexploited stocks. Ocean research over the past fifteen years has shown that a large, virtually unused population of anchovies exists off the coast of California, which appears to be capable of sustaining a fishery of about a million tons a year. Taking this catch should assist in rebuilding the stock of sardines with which they compete. A very large unused stock of hake exists in the same region. Both these species are used primarily as fishmeal. Research has shown that the population of jack mackerel off the Pacific coast, n o w supporting a catch of about 45,000 tons a year, could support greatly increased catches. Large stocks of demersal fish exist in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, as well as large populations of ocean perch (redfish) in the latter. Catches of over a million tons a year are already being m a d e by Russian and Japanese fishermen from these stocks.

During the past two years, a n e w high-seas fishery for bluefin tuna and for skipjack tuna has begun in the Atlantic. The presence of skipjack in commercial abundance was not k n o w n a few years ago. The new fishery for these valuable species, and for the tropical tuna species farther south in the Atlantic, m a y be expected to grow to rival the present tuna fishery in the eastern Pacific, which n o w produces landings valued at over $ 40 million a year. Further growth of the Pacific tuna fishery is to be expected, because, although the populations of yellowfin tuna and perhaps of albacore are near their level of m a x i m u m sustainable harvest, catches of skipjack tuna, certainly, and of bluefin tuna, probably, can be greatly increased. Continuing research will undoubtedly uncover m a n y further new opportunities. Recent work in the Indian Ocean has revealed large unused populations of tunas, shrimps, lobsters and sardines.

Lower harvest costs. T o ensure the existence of markets for an increased ocean harvest, w e must help the fishermen find means of catching fish more efficiently, and landing

158

Oceans, science'and men

them more cheaply, thus enabling them to provide an abundant supply of animal protein at low cost.

The trend of development of high-seas fisheries seems to be toward world-wide operations supplying a world market, employing both large, long-range vessels operat­ing from ports of the country whose flag they fly and vessels, both of the country's flag and other flags, operating from 'overseas' bases. The trend is well developed by the Japanese and is a significant element of the Russian fisheries. Scandinavian, Spanish, French, G e r m a n , and American operators are also entering the picture. In these n e w ocean-ranging fisheries, océanographie research can be an important aid to development.

Effects of physical conditions in the sea. The yields of m a n y of the major sea fisheries are widely variable from season to season and from year to year, even from decade to decade. In some cases, these fluctuations are k n o w n to be related to large-scale changes of the physical conditions in the sea. A few examples follow.

Off the north-west coast of South America (Peru-Ecuador) the pulsation of warming and cooling in the eastern Pacific reaches an apogee every five to eight years in a phenomenon so sharply evident in the whole area as to have earned a distinctive name, 'El Niño'. The cause of this phenomenon is still uncertain, but its effect is a spilling of w a r m tropical water in a thin skin over the normally cold upwelled water to a variable distance d o w n the Peruvian coast.

In this area lies the largest single species fishery in the world (for anchovy, Engraulis), large fisheries for yellowfin, skipjack tuna and bonito, and a very numerous oceanic bird population producing the guano of commerce. The effect of 'El Niño' on the production of the fisheries and of guano is catastrophic. It often brings about a mass mortality of the guanay birds; sometimes there is such mortality of aquatic life as to render the in-shore waters putrid; torrential and damaging rains in adjacent Ecuador and Peru are a regular feature.

In the regions of eastern boundary currents in the tropics a sharp and shallow thermocline directly overlies a layer of water that is almost oxygen-free. W h e n this oxygen-poor layer rises and invades the continental shelf, the bottom life is rudely affected. S o m e sections of the broad continental shelf off the Malabar coast of India are flushed partially clean of life each year as the monsoon and the current turn, the thermocline rises toward the surface, and the oxygen-poor cool water under it shallows and creeps in over the continental shelf. Swimming animals are forced to the surface, and toward the beach. Adult shrimps school in the upper water layers, and sole by the tens of tons surface and come into the beach seines. Similar, but not so striking, phenomena occur annually on the north shore of the Gulf of Guinea.

Large populations of fish and invertebrates are very often associated with regions of upwelling. The enormous population of anchovies off Peru is substantially confined to the recently upwelled waters there; at D a h o m e y , where the water upwells behind a cape, 5,000 canoes m a y take 10,000 tons of sardinella during a two-month season. The pink shrimps of the Gulf of P a n a m a come in with cool, upwelling water; the king mackerel (Scomberomorus) schools at the surface in the Gulf of Aden w h e n the surface waters are cooled by upwelling. Along the Sarashtra coast of India, cool subsurface water creeps up over the continental shelf as the monsoon and the surface current change. It is then that the great Indian salmon or Darà (Polydactylus) swarms into the bottom set nets.

159

R . ReveUe

About 80 per cent of the marine fish catch of India is m a d e on the west coast. The bulk of this is taken in the area from Ratnagari on the north to Alleppy on the south (the old Malabar and Kanara coast). T h e prime components of the catch by volume are the oil sardine {Sardinella longiceps) and the Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger canagurta). Both are subject to very wide fluctuations in yield. S o m e of the year to year vagaries of the sardine catch (fair records are available for 100 years) are 72,000 tons in 1933-34, compared with 1,123 tons in 1932-33; 25,269 tons in 1940-41 and 9 tons in 1946-47; 7,412 tons in 1956, and 191,469 tons in 1957. The sardine catch peaks sharply during the transition period between monsoons, when the cool, low-salinity coastal waters characteristic of the south-west monsoon are replaced by the w a r m saline waters of the north-east monsoon. In the past ten years the mackerel catch, while not so widely variable as that for sardine, has ranged from 103,574 tons in 1951, to 15,023 tons in 1956, and to 86,741 tons in 1957. Generally speaking, w h e n the sardine catch is up, the mackerel catch is d o w n , and vice versa.

T h e summer fishery for albacore tuna (Thunnus germd) is subject to wide swings in total yield, and in incidence on the coast, both in Japan and on the west coast of North America. In the latter area in particular these variations have been related to the seasonal incursion of water masses marked by particular surface temperature and salinity characteristics.

The fishery for skipjack (Katsuwonus) is one of the m o r e valuable fisheries of the Pacific, yielding upwards of a quarter of a million tons per year. It is prosecuted on a substantial commercial scale off Japan and Hawaii, and in the eastern tropical and sub-tropical Pacific. In all three localities the yield is subject to rather wide swings in volume. These variations are not clearly related to each other nor to the amount of fishing effort in any one of the areas.

Intensive research has demonstrated that the variations in yield are not fishery dependent. Availability of skipjack to the fishery within the broad area from southern California to northern Chile pulsates with the warming and cooling of the eastern Pacific. T h e species is m o r e available toward the middle of its range in cool years, and more available toward the southern and northern edges during w a r m years. In the Hawaiian area, fluctuations in yield, and the time of onset of the fishery, are related to the time and rate of incursion of California Current Extension waters through the Hawaiian archipelago. The intimate relationship of the 'formation of Katsuo fishing grounds' in the Japanese area to fluctuations in the strength and other attributes of the Kuroshio has been studied in too m u c h detail to summarize, save to say that the contribution of these factors to the yearly yield of this large fishery is important.

Some catch fluctuations are not understood. For the above examples, the relation between physical changes in the sea and large fluctuations in the yield of the fisheries is fairly clear. In other cases, the reasons for wide annual swings in the size of the catch are not well understood.

T h e winter herring fishery of N o r w a y goes through time changes in productivity that have been traced back to mediaeval times. In the most recent swing of the series, the annual catch declined from 1,146,000 tons in 1956 to 69,000 tons in 1961. This was the smallest catch in fifty years. T h e possible relation of these broad swings of production to climatic and sea conditions has been the subject of intensive research in N o r w a y all during this century.

In the 1930s, the catches of bluefin tuna (Thunnus) and of sardine (Sardinops)

160

Oceans, science and men

were large in Japan. During the 1940s and into the 1950s, the catches of both species shrank continuously until their importance became nominal. In the late 1950s, the catches of these species began to increase; they are still increasing and the fisheries are n o w once more important ones. There is no demonstrable relation between these events and the amount of fishing effort. Ocean research in Japan suggests that major factors in this wide swing in production were related to abiotic variables in the environment.

F r o m the standpoint of volume of production, the Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) is overwhelmingly the most important single species in the North American fisheries. The annual catch averages 600,000 tons. It is subject to wide swings, which are apparently related in part to changes in water temperatures on the eastern coast of the United States, which bring the fish more or less within the range of the fishery. The effect of variations in oceanic conditions on the availability of mackerel (Scomber) to the N e w England fishery has been the subject of a classic study.

The fishery for sardine (Sardina pilchardus) is prosecuted from West Germany to southern Morocco. In France it has been important since the tenth century. The total annual yield approximates 200,000 tons (up to 230,000). T h e fishery is of particular importance to the coastal economy of Spain, Portugal and Morocco, and only a little less so to the Atlantic coast of France. Wide variations in the total yield of the fishery are not usual, but the catch in any particular part of the range is notably erratic. It is not u n c o m m o n that the catch will drop very sharply in one year below that in the former and the following year (as happened in 1933 and 1949 in Portugal; 1952 and 1955 in France; 1927 and 1930 in England, etc.). It has been suggested that off Portugal variability in the intensity of upwelling affects the seasonal sardine yield.

Need for information on ocean conditions. O n a world-wide basis, the great fisheries are affected in a major way by changes in ocean currents, temperatures and other physical and chemical conditions. The fisherman needs to anticipate these to improve his efficiency and to lower his cost of production. H e can do this to a very limited degree on the basis of his o w n local observations, because oceanic events in the local area are partly the result of atmospheric and oceanic processes acting at a distance. W h a t are these far-away processes, h o w do they change and interact, and h o w are they related to what is going on in the local area?

N o phenomenon of the open ocean is so eagerly sought out by the pelagic fishermen as the interfaces between water masses, whether these be measured by tide rips at the surface, or by sharp thermoclines on the bathythermograph trace. Concomitantly no feature of the fickle ocean is so changeable as to location, sharpness and persistence as these interfaces.

For fisheries development and inquiry, one needed action is mapping of the world ocean as a unit at periodic intervals—monthly or seasonally—by parameters available at present, and by other parameters that can be m a d e available. These maps should show the existing conditions, anomalies from the same period the year before, and anomalies from an average base period—say a fifteen-year base. The maps should be planned so that particular sectors, such as areas of upwelling, areas occupied by important fisheries, areas of current interfaces, etc., can be magnified for more detailed examination without losing their conformity with the over-all world ocean maps . Means should be developed for speedy transmittal of these synoptic océano­graphie m a p s to ships at sea and workers ashore. The generation and transmittal of

161

R . Revelle

such synoptic m a p s would be an appropriate function for the World Data Centres and adequate finances should be furnished so that they can provide this service on a timely basis.

S o m e parameters which should be synoptically mapped are:

1. Surface temperatures. As noted in the report of the S C O R Working Party on Fishery Oceanography this is n o w being done experimentally or regularly in some regions. T h e methods of data collection, analysis and mapping have been worked out. However, the methods used by the agencies n o w working on the pro­blem are not conformable, and only limited sectors of the world ocean are covered.

2. Various chemical parameters, but particularly salinity. Developments should be undertaken on the automatic recording of chemical parameters from intake water, or otherwise, of ships at sea and on methods for transmittal of these values to shore data centres as is n o w done with surface temperatures, barometric pressures and weather observations.

3. Thermocline depth and intensity. 4. Temperatures and salinities at ten-metre depths. 5. Bottom temperatures over the continental shelf, with particular stress on the

areas of the great ground fisheries. 6. Plankton volumes recorded automatically and transmitted by ships at sea as

in 2 above. 7. Biological mass. Developments of underwater sound equipment are needed to

record automatically biological mass in a swath of sea along the track of moving ships. Such a device should be simple and sturdy enough for use o n merchant vessels and on large fishing boats, as well as on research ships. Underwater sound gear combined with underwater television can be used on research ships to identify and estimate the abundance of economically important components of the biomass.

8. Barometric pressure. 9. Cloud cover.

10. Interfaces between water masses. 11. Storm tracks.

A n y synoptic mapping programme, its procedures and the parameters used, should be under constant review by the advisory channels to the Intergovernmental Océano­graphie Commission.

Beside maps , time series of observations are needed at relatively fixed locations. A n ever-increasing number of continuously recording devices should be installed on weather ships, moored buoys and oceanic islands. M u c h research and testing remains to be done on these devices, but this should not prevent their proliferation in their simpler forms to key localities in the world ocean.

There are willing hands in a number of isolated yet key localities prepared to service such devices with minimal supervision. These include fishery development officers, superintendents of fish collecting and processing plants, and the captains of fishing vessels. M a n y laboratories in the developing countries could install and monitor these devices if they were provided with some financial and technical help.

Exploration of fish distribution. Frequently, exploited fish stocks are in a k n o w n location and depth only when they are available to some established fishery. At other

162

Oceans, science and m e n

times they m a y be in some entirely different geographical location, or in a deeper water layer.

Exploration for both exploited and unexploited stocks by conventional fishing gear or exploratory gear is essential to understanding and appraisal of the regional and world fishery potential. However, both adults and juveniles m a y at times be virtually inaccessible to this equipment. Exploration with conventional gear is not only slow, expensive and frequently inadequate, but it m a y result in misleading conclusions — gross underestimation of stocks, for example. There are several approaches to the problem of augmenting these fisheries exploration data; a m o n g these are underwater sound and television, surveys of fish larvae and the collection of fish scales in stratified bottom sediments.

Collection of pelagic fish larvae requires simple ships and simple plankton nets. It can yield a wealth of information on the fishes at two very important stages in their lives—the stages of spawning and hatching—and it can reveal m u c h information on the planktonic associates of the species. Pelagic fish larvae of abundant fish are numer­ous and widespread. Thus even a sparse coverage will be adequate for m a n y explora­tory purposes.

Initial identification of previously undescribed larvae requires collections of larval and post-larval series. T o obtain m o r e than a very rough estimate of the abundance of the spawning stock also requires further studies, such as determinations of the fecundity of the adult fish.

O n e underlying uncertainty of all fish surveys is that of the persistence of the species within a given region. In a few cases, extensive historical records permit an estimate of persistence. In most cases, however, there is n o assurance that the species does not fluctuate widely in distribution and abundance over the time scale of a few decades.

Fish scales, otoliths and other remains are preserved in some ocean bottom sedi­ments. W h e r e deposition is rapid and the bottom water conditions are sufficiently reducing, as in some in-shore basins, the sediments m a y be virtually undisturbed. The deposit of a decade or even a single year m a y be distinguishable and m a y contain sufficient identifiable fish remains to give insight into the persistence of fish species, interrelations of abundance of different species and gross changes in the composition of the fauna. This can be on a time scale that is useful for the appraisal or management of fisheries stocks (for example, 200 years by decades). Studies of the associated organic remains, such as diatom tests, will give insight into past oceanic conditions.

Larval and sediment surveys can be carried out with simple equipment, but they require competent laboratory investigators w h o can identify, classify and interrelate the material being collected.

Simple océanographie tools. Because of the very large amount of data needed for fisheries development, conventional deep-sea techniques of océanographie investiga­tion, which require expensive ships and equipment, need to be supplemented with simpler methods.

In near-shore regions m u c h can be accomplished with local fishing craft and pleasure boats, using light winches and conventional plankton nets, thermographs, water samplers, etc. Large commercial ships can obtain near-surface information in the deep sea from such devices as the Hardy plankton recorder, thermo-tows, etc.

S o m e recent developments permit an unspecialized vessel which is equipped with radar to carry out deep-sea investigations that hitherto have been difficult even for

163

R . Revelle

the specialized océanographie ship. These are a series of inexpensive collectors and instruments that function autonomously without connexion with the ship. They can be jettisoned and recovered in series, and can be handled by one or two m e n . Except in very calm regions of low current, a radar is almost essential in their recovery. A m o n g these devices are an exploratory bottom fish trap suitable for use to about 5,000 metres; a bottom and near-bottom recording current meter, suitable for use to about 3,000 metres; a gravity coring device; a long line or trot line of unlimited operating depth ; and vertical 'parachute' nets of ten and thirty metres mouth diameter that collect plankton and small nekton from about 3,000 metres to the surface. Other devices should include bottom cameras, large water samplers, etc. These devices are inexpensive and endow a simple vessel with more extensive capabilities in s o m e respects than the highly developed océanographie vessel.

M a n y organisms, including commercial fish, that live near the surface in high latitudes disappear from the surface layers at lower latitudes. In some cases they merely have descended to depths where they are unavailable to ordinary collection methods, but they can be collected with deep or bottom traps or very large 'parachute' nets. It appears that the near-surface portion of the range of some oceanic animals contains a minor portion of the total population and the major portion of the habitat has hitherto been u n k n o w n and unexplored.

Grazing the sea. It is often said that the techniques of fishing have not advanced m u c h past mankind's hunting stage, and that what is needed is to farm the ocean. But w e are beginning to learn that the problems of fisheries are m u c h more like the management of cattle grazing on an open range than like farming. W e need to maintain a balance between our catches of different kinds of fishes, or else the kinds that are least useful to us will take over from the most wanted varieties. W e need to learn h o w to breed better varieties of fishes, like salmon, that fatten themselves in the distant seas and return to the rives, where w e can stretch corral-like nets, to spawn. W e must learn to control the predators and pests that compete with us for the harvest of the sea. Perhaps w e can learn h o w to add small quantities of vitally-needed sub­stances to increase the fertility of the ocean pastures, m u c h as the Australians have been able to improve their sheep range by adding small quantities of cobalt.

At least, in some cases, the principal effect of a selective fishery on a species of fish is to alter its competitive relationship with its associates. In the case of the Pacific sardine off California, the apparent effect of the fishery, which took the sardine almost exclusively, was to stimulate the competing anchovy stocks.

T o date m u c h fishery research has been devoted to a single species of exploited fish, almost in an ecological vacuum. Increased research attention should be devoted to the trophic-level competitors of exploited fish stocks. The objectives of this research should be the understanding of the existing degree of competition and the potential of the competing species to replace the exploited stock. At the same time, inquiry into the competing species m a y result in its utilization and thus possibly in a m o r e stable 'trophic-level' fishery.

Marine minerals

W e m a y consider three classes of marine minerals: (a) dissolved substances in sea water; (b) sediments and accretions on the deep sea floor; and (c) consolidated and unconsolidated deposits on the continental shelves.

164

Oceans, science and men

Dissolved substances. Sea water contains m a n y of the minerals necessary to the world's chemical industry, yet there never has been a venturesome and vigorous evaluation of its potential mineral resources. Beside sodium chloride, only the most modest mining is done for bromine and magnesium. Practically no research is being done on possible uses of magnesium. Could an industrial technique be developed to process the sea water more efficiently? Could a greater demand for magnesium be created? Could it successfully compete with aluminium in certain instances? H o w unique were the magnesium-thorium alloys, of a few years ago, for certain industrial applications? It would be easy to extract rubidium and cesium from sea water, espe­cially where large volumes of the water are being processed, as in sea water conversion plants. W h a t are the present and future needs for these two elements? If an economically commercial technique were developed for their extraction from the oceans, what effect would this have on present suppliers ?

O n e possibility is to combine a chemical processing plant with a plant converting sea water to fresh water. A single set of pumps could service both installations and the effluent of the fresh-water plant would be concentrated two- to fourfold.

Another little-investigated possibility is the use of organisms (especially micro­organisms) to concentrate such elements as iron, copper, uranium, zinc and iodine.

Taking advantage of such possibilities will require a great deal of ingenuity, and must depend on new knowledge from basic and applied research and engineering. A modest portion of the funds currently being used for sea water conversion research could be allocated to such studies.

Although drugs, by and large, cannot be classified as minerals, the sea has been a useful source of drugs including agar, cod liver and other fish oils, chondrus extract, spermaceti, ichthyol, and various chemical combinations of iodine, magnesium and bromine. Lack of medical utilization of more substances from the sea is perhaps due to lack of knowledge about the compounds which m a y be available.

Antibiotics m a y be one of the unexplored potentials of the sea. T h e presence of antibiotics in marine organisms has been demonstrated, and several workers have been active in this field over the last decade. The pace of their discoveries indicates that our present knowledge is small compared with what remains yet to be discovered about the pharmacology of marine organisms.

Sediments and accretions on the deep sea floor. Materials on the deep sea floor of possible economic interest, with rough estimates of total reserves, are shown in the table below.

Manganese nodules Phosphorite nodules Globigerina ooze Diatomaceous ooze Red clay Barium sulphate concentrations Magnetic spherules

Tonnage estimates

1012 1010

10" IO« IO«

?

?

Elements of interest

M n , Cu, Co, Ni, M o , V, Zn, Z P,Zr C a C 0 3 SiOa

C u , Al, Co, Ni B a S 0 4 Ni, Fe

165

R . Revelle

A s w e go into deep water w e find incredibly large quantities of black, potato-shaped nodules lying on the sea floor. These contain 25 to 30 per cent of manganese, and sometimes as much as 1 per cent of cobalt, copper, or nickel. The deposits are actually forming at a more rapid rate than the world rate of consumption of these metals. Thus, the nodules represent a renewable resource in the sense that they are being formed faster than they could be exploited. Within one or two decades they m a y become economically mineable.

Gross recoverable values are estimated to range from $45 to $ 100 a ton, and some experts believe that the nodules can n o w be mined at a profit, because they m a y be amenable to a very low-cost automated technology of gathering and processing.

Efficient mining of these deposits will require large-scale operations, with a single unit producing at least 5,000 tons of nodules per day, at a gross value of about $125 million per year. Such a large operation will not get under way until sufficient data become available to engineer its development. A n important pre-requisite is a better understanding of the variations in composition and abundance of nodules in different sea areas. In spite of the very considerable promise offered, the mineral industry has moved slowly in this field, because of the complex of unsolved technical problems and unanswered scientific questions.

Research done to date has shown that the distribution of the nodules, though widespread, is not uniform, and that the chemical composition ranges within wide limits. The nodules seem to be concentrated at the sediment-water interface, while the enclosing and underlying fine-grained pelagic sediment commonly contains 'micronodules' (less than one millimetre) comparable in composition to the coarser material.

Present knowledge of the distribution and composition of manganese nodules is inadequate to justify a heavy industrial investment. It is based entirely on widely spaced 'grab' samples, supported in places by sea-bottom photography. Samples have been reported from less than 150 localities in the Pacific basin. This is equivalent to about one sample per million square kilometres. N o data are available on continuity in the distribution of nodules, or on local spatial variations in their composition. Such data must come from continuous, as distinguished from spot or 'grab', sampling.

A suggested method of collecting what are effectively continuous samples calls for the construction of a large number of inexpensive, free-falling automated samplers which could be cast overboard at short intervals from a lead ship. They would sink to the bottom, collect a sample, take a photograph, release a weight and return to the surface where they would be recovered by a trailing ship.

Such a system could provide a line of data, where the continuity would be limited only by the frequency with which the samplers were cast overboard. A parallel series of such traverses would provide the data for a detailed geologic m a p of a portion of the sea floor.

Phosphorite nodules are found in m a n y places, mostly on the outer continental shelves and off-shore banks, in m u c h shallower water than manganese nodules. Deposits on the banks of the continental borderlands off southern California are estimated to contain up to 50 to 60 million tons of phosphatic minerals.

The California off-shore deposits are comparable with low-grade phosphates on land rather than with so-called high-grade phosphates. They contain 31 to 32 per cent of P 2 O 5 after removal of the non-phosphatic materials with which the phosphate minerals are mixed, and after calcining of the latter to remove organic matter, water

166

Oceans, science and m e n

and carbon dioxide. High-grade phosphates contain 36 to 38 per cent of P2O5. This is not a serious handicap for marine deposits, since the world market for low-grade phosphate is at present about 30 million tons a year, while the market for high-grade phosphate is 12 million tons. Unfortunately, the marine deposits which have been analysed up to date have a significantly higher content of metallic impurities than phosphates being mined on land, and this would reduce their value by about $ 1 a ton, to approximately $12 a ton on the dock in a shipping port.

Other potential phosphate deposits, off Australia or India for example, appear promising. A s a rough estimate, a new industry with a gross value of $ 10 to $20 million a year could be developed within the next decade, based on these resources. A world­wide search for undersea phosphate, and basic research on the mechanisms and condi­tions of its formation, would cost several million dollars a year, but it could pay off handsomely.

The other materials in the table above will probably not c o m e into production for a long time, although there is some current interest in certain deposits of Globigerina ooze, which compare with A S T M Types I and II cement rocks. T h e latter account for about 95 per cent of the cement rock market.

Explorations in the Gulf of Mexico have produced evidence that suggests the existence of a cluster of salt domes in the Sigsbee Deep. Further research in this area could add oil, gas and sulphur as possible mineral resources from the deep sea floor.

There are several enclosed basins in which strong concentrations of sulphides in the sediments are found—for instance, the Black Sea, Cariaco Trench off Venezuela, and probably some places in the Gulf of California. Research in such areas might lead to economic extraction of sulphide minerals, particularly if some of the radio­active elements could be collected as a by-product.

W e should not close our eyes or our methodology to the unexpected, such as the possibility that giant iron-nickel meteorites m a y lie exposed on the floor of the deep sea.

Deposits on the continental shelves. T h e principal mineral resources of the continental shelves n o w being exploited are oil, natural gas and some sulphur. A great deal of international interest has recently been aroused by the discovery that very extensive natural gas deposits m a y exist under the North Sea. There are, however, other potentially valuable mineral concentrations on the continental shelves that are receiving less attention.

These are the placer deposits of drowned beaches and other shelf areas. T h e diamond-bearing gravels off the south-west coast of Africa are an example. T h e average yield is about five carats per ton, compared with about one carat per ton normally recovered in the South African diamond fields. O f the diamonds recovered so far, nearly all are gem stones, which bring the highest prices. T h e present production rate has been reported to be as high as $ 15,000 a day. Recent prospecting in sea areas off N o m e and Juneau, Alaska, has indicated the presence of substantial quantities of gold-bearing sands which will probably soon begin to be mined. Tin ores in drowned beach and alluvial deposits are at present being dredged off the coasts of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia in waters up to forty metres in depth. The possibility of similar undersea deposits should be investigated on the continental shelf off Cornwall. Magnetite-rich sands are being mined for their iron content by ships in shallow waters off Japan. Over the past four years, the Japanese have dredged 7 million tons of relatively high-grade iron ore from the bottom of Tokyo Bay; they

167

R . Revelle

are mining other magnetite deposits, in waters up to thirty metres deep within a few kilometres of the shore, at a rate of several thousand tons of concentrate a month . Iron-rich sands similar to the Japanese deposits exist to an u n k n o w n extent off Alaska, where chromite-bearing sands are also found. Titanium sands are believed to occur off Florida, as well as off India, Ceylon, Japan and Australia. Monazite sands containing thorium and rare earths probably occur on the continental shelves off Brazil and India.

In all the regions where modern beach sands have a potentially valuable mineral content, a good possibility exists that the fossil beaches, further off-shore and in deeper water, accumulated similar deposits during the lower sea level stages of the Pleistocene.

Geological and mineralogica! research at a level of several million dollars a year, directed specifically toward the location of mineral deposits on the continental shelves, could generate new industry of gross product at least $50 million a year within a decade.

In addition to the investment in research, the development of the marine minerals industry will require substantial capital investment for engineering development and procurement of equipment. Thus , only a portion, perhaps 30 per cent, of the benefits to be gained could be attributed to oceanic research and surveys.

Long-range weather forecasting

Recent meteorological studies show that changes in large-scale weather patterns over periods of weeks to m a n y years are closely related to changes in the temperature distribution of the water layers near the surface of the sea. Because the sea behaves more sluggishly than the air, these observations indicate that improvements in long-range weather forecasting can be m a d e through studies of the large-scale interaction between the oceans and the atmosphere. The present accuracy of long-range fore­casting is low, but if it could be improved, great economic benefits would follow; for example, in planting and harvesting crops, in planning seasonal fuel transportation and storage, in the timing of building and road construction, and in flood and drought protection.

Flood damage could be reduced by management of flood control structures; for example, by lowering the water levels in reservoirs prior to periods of heavy precipita­tion or snow melt. The costs of construction of buildings, highways, telephone and telegraph lines, pipe-lines, d a m s and public utilities would be lowered, if scheduling of labour and equipment could be planned to take advantage of good weather. T h e costs of fuels and electric power used in space heating and air conditioning would be reduced if public utilities and fuel producers could plan production, transportation and storage on the basis of reliable forecasts of w a r m or cold winters and hot or cool summers. Commercial vegetable growers could k n o w which vegetables to plant and when, depending on forecasts of growing conditions in different regions. The vegetable processing and marketing industries could save m o n e y by scheduling their operations on the basis of anticipated volume and quality of the crops in different farm areas. Fruit growers and packers and wine makers would be able to time their harvesting and processing operations. Cattlemen and hog farmers would be able to m a k e better estimates of the volume and prices of feed grains and the productivity of pasture and range lands. The operators of ski resorts would k n o w whether they would need snow ploughs, or trucks to bring in additional snow, during the coming winter. Hotel m e n

168

Oceans, science and m e n

in Switzerland and in Greece could plan for a heavy or a light tourist season and individual families would be able to think ahead about where and w h e n to take a vacation.

Over the fifteen-year period from 1946 to 1960, the estimated damage from floods in the United States alone was $4,200 million, or an average of $280 million a year. Better long-range weather forecasting might reduce this by 25 to 50 per cent—$70 to $140 million a year.

Labour costs amount to roughly one-third of the total costs of new construction. If the efficiency of utilization of labour and equipment could be improved by 5 per cent through better scheduling based on reliable long-range weather forecasts, several thousand million dollars would be saved in the countries of the temperate zones.

In these countries about one-quarter of the costs of fuels and electric power represents the cost of space heating and air conditioning. If 5 per cent could be saved by better scheduling of coal, oil and natural gas production, oil refining operations, transportation by pipe-lines, rail and ships, and storage, this would be worth at least a thousand million dollars.

The total value to European, Soviet, North American, and Japanese farmers of commercial vegetable production, potato production and production of fruits including grapes is of the order of $ 10,000 million per year. T h e added values from processing and marketing are about twice this figure. A 5 per cent gain through better planning and scheduling would represent at least a thousand million dollars.

Weather-produced variations in the size of the crops of corn, oats and hay have serious economic effects for livestock producers, as do changes from year to year in the productivity of permanent pastures and range lands, caused by variations in seasonal rainfall. Significant savings would be obtained if the farmers could plan h o w to feed and dispose of their stock on the basis of reliable long-range weather forecasts. A 5 per cent saving would amount to around a thousand million dollars.

In m a n y parts of the earth's semi-arid lands, farmers are dependent on variable and uncertain rainfall for the success or failure of their harvest. Forecasts of seasonal rainfall would be immensely valuable in guiding their decisions as to what crops, if any, to plant during a particular year, and w h e n to plant them.

Although these estimates are extremely crude, it is clear that a m i n i m u m of $5,000 million, and perhaps very m u c h more, could be saved by farmers, fuel produ­cers, public utilities, builders and water managers if they were equipped with better forecasting tools. In addition w e must take into account the economic benefits that might be obtained in the various industries associated with tourism and recreation, and the intangible savings to individual families.

The ocean of air in which w e live and the ocean of water beneath us are interlocked components of a great heat engine. The engine works to transport heat energy from low latitudes to high latitudes, where it is radiated into space. M u c h of the energy of the air—about one-third—enters it through the condensation of water vapour evaporated from the sea surface. A large part of the remainder is transferred as sensible heat from the w a r m sea to cooler air. Evaporation and heating do not take place uniformly over the ocean nor are they uniform at any given latitude. They are high where the cloud cover is small and in those regions where the difference in temperature between the sea and the air is greatest.

The areas of m a x i m u m temperature difference between the surface ocean waters and the air shift in location and vary in intensity with time. Similarly, the regions

169

R . Revelle

where storms are born and the paths of storm travel appear to change with variations in water temperature near the sea surface. Because of its high heat capacity and massive inertia, the ocean can change only slowly with time. The persistence of weather patterns over periods of weeks to years m a y result, in part, from this sluggishness of the ocean.

T h e hope of improved long-range weather forecasting depends on our learning h o w to predict changes in persistent weather patterns. In so far as these patterns depend on patterns in the sea, it is clear that in order to gain greater understanding of the mechanisms of change w e need to understand the large-scale interactions between the sea and the air.

Recent work has shown that anomalies in atmospheric circulation result in anomalies of ocean surface temperature. For example, with increasing winds of cold origin there is an increased transfer of sensible and latent heat from the ocean to the atmosphere and an increased stirring of the upper layers of the stratified sea. Both these processes result in a lowering of the sea surface temperatures. The restoring processes by which the sea surface temperatures return to their 'average value' c o m e from a slow strength­ening of the poleward-moving ocean currents near the sea surface. O n e unsolved problem is to determine the character and find the rate of the changes in the ocean density distribution that cause these poleward currents.

The large-scale interactions between the sea and the air need to be studied co-operatively by oceanographers and meteorologists. T ime series of measurements at m a n y points in the upper water layers need to be combined with continuous maps of cloud cover, winds and atmospheric temperature distributions over the oceans. M a n y of these atmospheric measurements will c o m e from weather satellites, but the measurement of the ocean waters will probably require establishment of a network of anchored buoys.

T o attain the practical objective of improved long-range weather forecasts will require both meteorological and océanographie research. But responsibility for application of new knowledge to the problems of weather forecasting must rest primarily with the meteorologists.

Forecasting is not the only economic objective of modern atmospheric research. There is reason to hope that some aspects of our planet's weather can be controlled. T h e murderously-destructive tropical storms called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the western Pacific are born and have their embryonic growth over the ocean. It is not impossible that these storms can be aborted in their early stages if a means can be found to prevent anomalously large transfers of heat energy and water vapour from the sea to the air in the regions of hurricane formation. If this could be done it would be worth at least $ 140 million to the United States alone. Over the period from 1940 to 1957 this was the average yearly damage caused by hurricanes in the eastern and southern part of the country. During this period nearly 1,000 people were killed by hurricanes.

The oceans as highways

The high seas both divide and unite the nations of mankind. With the growth of industrialization, the entire world storehouse of raw materials is being drawn u p o n to meet the needs of the new machines, and as a consequence shipborne commerce is increasing. Yet there has been little change in the efficiency of shipping. Ocean freight

170

Oceans, science and men

costs are a continuing drain on the world's economies, especially those of the poor countries.

Coal, molybdenum, phosphate, magnesium, w o o d , petroleum, asbestos, tin, m a n ­ganese, iron ore, bauxite, cobalt, nickel, chromite, quartz crystal and industrial diamonds are a few of the essential raw materials carried in transoceanic trade. Shipments of food products are steadily rising. The sea is the major highway for the international transportation of heavy or bulky materials; it will undoubtedly remain so for m a n y generations to come. Total world ship construction required for inter­national ocean trade in 1975 could be 5 to 10 million tons a year. Perhaps as m u c h as half of this new tonnage would be in bulk carriers, with a construction cost of around $150 per deadweight ton, and the other half in other types of cargo ships costing around $250 per deadweight ton. The annual cost of the new construction would be between one and two thousand million dollars. All of this cost would be a burden on importers and exporters, and on their overseas customers and suppliers.

Freight costs for ocean cargoes vary widely with the type of cargo and the distance it is carried. With present technology the total world freight cost could be $15,000 million per year by 1975. About half these costs would be charged against the time the ships are at sea, and the other half against the 'turn around' time required for loading and unloading and other operations in port.

A reduction in the cost of ocean shipping would serve the interests of both the advan­ced and the less developed countries. Lower shipping costs would especially help the less developed countries, because they are so largely dependent for their economic growth on the overseas sale of raw materials and agricultural products, and on the importation of heavy machinery for industrialization. Océanographie research can m a k e significant contributions to a reduction in ocean shipping costs. M a n y aspects of knowledge about the oceans have a direct bearing on their use as the major inter­continental highway. For example, better statistics on sea surface waves should make it possible to improve the design and lower the cost of new ships. Through improve­ments in the forecasting of waves, winds and currents, ships could be better routed along m i n i m u m time paths; both fuel consumption and time at sea would thereby be reduced. Improved routing should also lower storm losses. Stranding and collision losses could be lowered through improvements in navigation, based on m o r e detailed knowledge of sea bottom topography. Greater knowledge of near-shore wave and current conditions and sea floor characteristics is needed for improvement of existing harbours and construction of new ones, and for the development of new methods of loading and unloading. Increased knowledge of the life histories, behaviour and phy­siology of fouling and boring organisms could help to lower the losses caused by these pests.

Ship design. Wind-generated ocean surface waves produce the major strains suffered by a ship, and the wave spectrum must be taken into account in the earliest design stages. Waves cause the heavy slamming and the emergence of the propeller that produce dangerous vibrations, and knowledge of wave action is of basic importance in designing for freeboard, stability and hull strength. The loss of speed to be expected in heavy weather has to be reckoned with in computing fuel consumption and power requirements. Values for ship length and ship speed must be combined with wave frequencies to give what has been called 'frequencies of encounter'. The power spec­trum coherence and time variability of waves need to be k n o w n in evaluating the

171

R . Revelle

behaviour of a ship as a system that responds to wave forces. M u c h better statistical information on the distribution of these wave properties in space and time throughout the oceans is essential if ships are to be designed with the higher payload/weight ratios and narrower tolerances that are sought for in other kinds of transportation. At present, this statistical information is inadequate even to allow ship designers to k n o w h o w realistic are the wave conditions which they create in their test and model basins.

The idea of designing ships specifically for certain limited trade routes has recently been advanced. Construction costs could be reduced by building ships to withstand the waves to be expected only along one particular route. For this purpose, more data and analyses are needed to distinguish the wave characteristics of various ocean areas.

Another path to increased variability in ship design would open if freight rates could be varied to recognize the value of speed of delivery. It might be possible under a policy of varying freight rates to have a certain n u m b e r of express ships m u c h as the land and air transportation systems have rail express and air freight.

Beside the savings that could be effected in design of conventional ships through greater knowledge of conditions near the sea surface, any radical departures in design, such as the development of hovercraft, hydrofoils, or cargo-carrying submarines must be based on oceanic knowledge. The availability of shorter routes utilizing under-ice movement contributes to the possible appeal of the commercial submarine. The polar route between London and Tokyo, for example, is only 6,300 miles, as opposed to 11,200 by the conventional surface route. F r o m Honolulu to London , the under-ice polar route would save nearly 3,000 miles.

Costs of new ships per ton of carrying capacity have been lowered in recent years through improvements in ship machinery and shipyard technology, but further reductions seem possible through improved design. If a 10 per cent reduction could be attained within the next ten years by taking advantage of better wave statistics, this would be worth $100 million to $200 million a year. Ascribing 30 per cent of this saving to océanographie research, the benefits over the next twenty years, when discounted to the present time, become $175 to $350 million.

Minimum time paths and reduced storm losses. If the causes of waves, the mechanisms for their growth, propagation and decay, and the effect of waves on ships were c o m ­pletely understood, and if the distribution in time and space throughout the world oceans of these causes and effects were known, it would be possible to predict what would happen to a ship along any given route. Ships could then be routed along an optimum time track or routed for m a x i m u m comfort or safety.

This is already being done in some countries on the basis of the rather limited available knowledge. Government agencies and some commercial steamship operators have utilized the 'least time track' principle to reduce the time of vessels at sea. Savings in steaming time have been recorded at eight hours for a 3,000-mile trip, and thirteen to fifteen hours for a trip of 5,000 miles.

T h e ship-routing technique is still in its infancy, however. Especially needed at this stage are efficient methods of tracking vessels, improved communications, the development of the confidence of maritime operators in the principle, and, most important, better knowledge of winds and currents near the sea surface and of the generation, propagation, decay, and effects on ships of ocean surface waves.

For a ship whose operating costs at sea run to $3,000 per day, a saving of twelve

172

Oceans, science and men

hours on a transoceanic crossing is worth $ 1,500. Considering the number of ships operating at any given time, the potential savings to the maritime industry from a perfected ship routing programme could run into large sums. W e estimate that a 10 per cent saving in average ship time at sea, worth about $750 million annually to the world's shippers, could be attained by 1975. Assigning 30 per cent of this saving to the knowledge gained by océanographie research, the benefits discounted to the present time would be $1,400 million, several times the estimated cost of the necessary research.

T o this should be added the potential savings from reducing storm damage to ships and cargo. In 1962, four ships totalling 30,118 gross tons were lost in storms and 822 ships sustained partial losses. The average dollar costs from weather damage to the world's ocean shipping m a y be of the order of $150 million per year. A 10 per cent reduction in weather losses through improved routing would be worth $15 million a year.

Navigation and strandings. Traditionally, the ship captain has been fearful of running aground. The Loss Book of the Liverpool Underwriters Association shows that in 1962 these fears were still well founded, for in that year strandings were 'exceptionally bad', and sixty-eight ships were lost. This amounted to 280,732 gross tons of shipping. Partial losses from running aground were sustained by 925 ships. Collisions caused a further loss of fourteen ships totalling 60,843 gross tons, and partial losses to 1,804 ships. Better navigation will m e a n fewer strandings and less loss or damage to ships and cargo; it will mean faster transit times resulting from better under-way track control; and it m a y mean less damage from collisions resulting from poor navigation control.

Potential world losses from strandings and collisions could be around $500 million annually during the mid-1970s. A 20 per cent reduction through improvements in navigation would be worth around $100 million a year. Such a reduction by 1975 appears feasible, but it would require, a m o n g other efforts, a vigorous interna­tional programme of ocean floor surveying.

The aircraft pilot operating under visual flight regulations is able to look out of his window at rivers, mountain ranges, canyons and hills, and by these to locate himself, using the method known as pilotage. In simpler words, this merely means looking and seeing where you are. Except in a few places, this technique is not available to the marine navigator, because the knowledge of the submarine landscape is too meagre for him to use.

The area of submarine canyons which indent the continental slope off Georges Bank, some 100 miles east of Cape C o d , is one of the exceptions. A series of steep submarine canyons lie athwart the major sea lanes between Europe and N e w York. These canyons have been accurately surveyed by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and are shown on the navigational charts. A s transoceanic shipping ap­proaches the area, the normal procedure is to switch on the echo sounder. W h e n the bottom trace shows that the ship has crossed the first canyon, the navigator checks the m a x i m u m depth of crossing. By reference to his chart, he is able to get an accurate fix on his location, for the canyon axis gives him a check in one direction, and the point of axis-crossing is defined by the m a x i m u m depth to give him a check in the other direction. A s he crosses the next of the series of canyons, the procedure is repeated to give a second fix, and he has not only a firm check on his course, but also

173

R . Revelle

on his speed of advance. Fixes of this sort are independent of the cloud cover that prohibits star fixes, and of the sky wave problem, precipitation static and occasional poor transmission, that sometimes interfere with obtaining good positions from electronic positioning systems.

Considerable portions of the world's coastlines still need to be surveyed by modern methods, and there exist no accurate charts of over 95 per cent of the ocean. A s the area of the ocean which has been adequately charted is increased, the echo sounding pilotage technique can be used m o r e and more confidently and effectively by ocean navigators.

Port facilities. A large part of the cost to the shipper of goods carried by oceanic transport is absorbed in the port areas, particularly in the processes of loading and unloading his cargo between the ship and the land. These in-port costs have been estimated at over half the total shipping bill. Even a minor improvement would result in a large annual saving, and would m a k e efforts to reduce time at sea more profitable. The sea-borne part of an overseas shipment is the most economical form of transpor­tation k n o w n to m a n . Clearly, the real need is for m o r e efficient transfer between ship and shore.

Improved predictions for tidal currents in narrow channels and constricted har­bours, improved nautical charting techniques, incorporation of radar 'pictures' in harbour chart atlases, improved harbour construction based on more accurate predictions of the changes in bottom silting conditions, development of schemes for preventing or dissipating such natural hazards as fog and ice—all of these could result from an increased effort in océanographie research. These would contribute to m o r e efficient operation, and hence lower costs in present harbours, and would help in designing the n e w harbour facilities that are needed to serve the world's widening ocean trade. But most harbours would still be crowded; the difficulties of manoeuvring large ships in constricted waterways, with winds and strong tidal currents running at large angles to the slips, would still remain; and the problems of shoaling channel bottoms, polluted harbour waters and conflicting uses of the shore line would persist.

N e w approaches in transferring bulk cargoes between the sea and the land are needed. O n e solution has been successfully used by the oil industry. At m a n y places on open coasts, petroleum is loaded through pipe-lines stretching along the sea floor from the beach to an anchored off-shore buoy. Similar pipe-lines can be used foi s o m e other bulk cargoes. For example, the feasibility of overland transport of coal slurries in pipe-lines has already been demonstrated. The handling of other types of material has been greatly improved by development of techniques for 'containerization' and 'cargo unitization'. These and other possible developments can give n e w dimensions of flexibility to the solution of harbour problems. For m a n y of these possibilities, particularly those utilizing open coastlines, greater knowledge of near-shore wave and current conditions and sea floor characteristics will be needed.

A shortening of average 'turn around times' by 20 per cent within the next fifteen years appears possible. This would be worth about $1,500 million a year to world shipping. It will require a multi-faceted approach to m a n y problems, and the over-all contribution of océanographie studies will be only a minor part of the entire effort. Assuming that this contribution is 10 per cent of the total, the benefits attributable to oceanic research within the next twenty years would be worth $500 million at the present time—about twice the discounted cost of the needed research.

174

Oceans, science and m e n

Reduction of losses from fouling and boring organisms. The fouling of ship hulls and the ravages of boring animals have been a 'calamitas navium', as Linnaeus called them, since m a n first took to the sea.

In earlier times, it was not unusual for a ship to have its bottom encrusted completely to a depth of eight or nine inches, adding 300 tons or more to the original weight of the ship. Recently, frequent dry-docking and the use of anti-fouling paints on under­water surfaces have reduced the m a x i m u m growth that most ships can expect. But after six to eight months in the water, growths two to three inches thick and weighing upwards of 100 tons are c o m m o n , particularly o n ships that have spent some time in tropical ports.

Freedom from fouling means a smoother hull. This in turn means less frictional resistance and hence less power requirement, with a resultant demand for less fuel for the same speed. This in turn means lower costs to the ship operator. Fouling by barnacles and other organisms can so reduce the speed developed at a given engine power that in order to maintain shipping schedules fuel consumption must be increased by 50 per cent.

T h e fouling organisms on ship hulls are not only the well-known barnacles but also various species of hydroids, algae, calcareous worms and sea squirts. In their larval stages, these organisms are free-swimming. They attach themselves to the hull while a ship is in port, and unless detached by friction w h e n the ship is under way, they remain in place and grow to inhibit the efficient operation of the ship.

Major advances in reducing the costs of fouling have been m a d e in recent years. For example, paint or plastic coatings containing toxic ions of copper or mercury can be used to poison organisms within one millimetre of a ship's hull and to prevent the attachment of these organisms during their larval stages. Other studies have m a d e it possible to lengthen the intervals between dry-docking, by enabling more accurate estimates to be m a d e of the effectiveness of anti-fouling coatings as functions of the season of the year and the foulness of the ports visited.

Océanographie research can contribute to a further reduction in losses from fouling organisms. Practical anti-fouling methods must rest on increased understanding of the geographical distribution, life histories, physiology and behaviour of the different species of organisms, particularly those that infest ships in tropical ports. Only then can w e hope to k n o w the weak points where their growth can be effectively inhibited.

N o well-documented estimate exists for the costs of fouling organisms to world shipping, but an annual total of $300 million is probably not excessive, and a reduction by 25 per cent within the next ten years appears possible. T o accomplish this, marine biological research on the fouling organisms themselves must be accompanied by development of pesticides and other means to control them.

In San Pablo Bay, the northern arm of San Francisco Bay, a sudden and severe invasion by marine borers between 1917 and 1921 caused failure of almost every wooden underwater structure, with an estimated loss of $25 million over the four-year period. Nearer to San Francisco, wharf installations on Treasure Island, built during the Second World W a r , were seriously damaged by the boring molluscs called Lim-noria. T h e fender system, m a d e of untreated eucalyptus w o o d , was so badly riddled by these animals that it was totally unfit for use. In Boston harbour the cost of repairs in the late 1930s to damage caused by marine borers over the previous ten years was $5 million. S o m e $3 million of this sum was spent to repair the wharf at the United

175

R . Revelle

States A r m y base in South Boston. All of the damage to this wharf was due to one species (Limnoria lignorum). In 1946, the Brielle Bridge over the Manasquan River in N e w Jersey collapsed as a result of the activities of marine borers in the centre pier supports.

A conservative estimate of the damage caused by marine borers throughout the world is $200 million a year.

Three groups of marine organisms are responsible for most of the destruction wrought each year to wharves, piers, ferry slips and other harbour structures built wholly or in part of w o o d . These are the Teredinidae, Pholadidae, and Limnoria. Probably the most destructive are the 'shipworms', Teredo and Bankia. These m a y grow to a length of more than five feet while attaining a diameter of something less than an inch. Océanographie research has shown that these animals are to varying degrees sensitive to salinity, temperature, food supply, current action, pollution, dissolved oxygen concentration, p H and the amount of dissolved H z S in the water.

Considerable progress has been m a d e in reducing the ravages of marine borers, largely through pretreatment of w o o d used in harbour structures by pressure creosoting. But m u c h remains to be done. It is reasonable to hope that world-wide borer losses could be lowered by m u c h more than 25 per cent in the next two decades. This will require intensified research into the behaviour and physiology of these pests at all stages of their life cycles, together with studies of the properties of the woods used for harbour structures in different parts of the world, and of various chemical or physical deterrents to the animals.

Public health and welfare

This term includes the protection of the natural resources of the coastal zones for the benefit of m a n . A m o n g other requirements, the in-shore marine environment must be protected against deterioration resulting from the discharge of municipal and industrial wastes. This environment has the capacity to receive a certain amount of waste discharge without damage to its other uses. In fact, a valuable and legitimate use of the near-shore marine environment is as a diluting and assimilating m e d i u m for waste materials, provided these wastes are introduced in such amounts and in such a manner that the capacity of the environment is not exceeded. B y capacity w e mean a rate of introduction which will not result in its degradation from the standpoint of other uses, such as fishing and recreation.

In the ideal case, the engineer designing a sewage treatment plant would have complete information on the effect of the treated effluent on the marine environment. This information would include the physical movement and dispersion of the wastes, and the biochemical and geochemical interactions of the waste components with the environment, including, for instance, the survival of pathogenic micro-organisms and the effects of waste components on the aquatic life. With this information, the engineer could design the optimum treatment facilities required to protect the fisheries and the recreational uses of the environment, and funds for plant construction could be utilized in the most efficient manner. N o component of the treatment system would be over-designed (involving a waste of funds) or under-designed (involving risk to other valuable uses of the marine environment).

The conventional sanitary engineering methods for determining the waste-receiving capacity of uni-directionally-flowing fresh-water streams and rivers are completely

176

Oceans, science and men

inadequate to treat the corresponding problem in tidal estuaries and open coastal waters. W e lack both an adequate engineering framework to treat the problem and the basic scientific background on the physical, chemical and biological processes. M u c h of the required research is outside the usual scope of sanitary engineering and falls within the realm of oceanography.

Océanographie research in the near-shore marine environment can provide infor­mation required to determine the best outfall location for sewage effluents and the type and degree of treatment needed for this location. In some cases the added cost of locating the outfall in a region of greater receiving capacity m a y be less than the added cost of more complete waste treatment.

The capacity of the in-shore marine environment to receive industrial waste dis­charges at a level which does not restrict other uses is in itself one of the natural resour­ces of the sea. The same research required to define adequately the physical, chemical and biological character of this environment from the standpoint of domestic sewage effluent is also required to deal with the effects of industrial wastes. Industrial waste discharges into some estuarine and coastal waters have had a more serious effect on recreation and fisheries than have domestic sewage discharges.

In several countries, nuclear power plants are under construction on estuaries and coastal embayments. The future development of nuclear power will require increased use of in-shore marine waters as a source of condenser coolant for the power plants. Release of some radio-active nuclides to the marine environment m a y result from this use. Research on physical dispersion required for other waste discharge problems will be equally useful in understanding the possible effects of radio-active discharges. Research on the biological effects of radio-active materials is also required.

In m a n y countries, there is a large and growing demand for marine recreational facilities. This requires careful planning in order to develop to the fullest the potentials for small boat harbours, for improved in-shore fishing, and for suitable public beaches for sunning, swimming and surfing. T h e demand is so great in m a n y places that ways must be found in effect to 'stretch' the natural shore lines.

Beside pollution from waste discharges, m a n y factors influence the recreational uses of the shore line. Even the control of fresh-water runoff from the land m a y have profound effects. For example, on the beaches of southern California, the sand supplied by rivers is transported along the beach by wave-generated currents, and is lost to the deep sea at submarine canyons. Runoff control has cut the supply of sand to nearly zero and, without some intervention, the beaches m a y seriously deteriorate within the next two decades.

O n the other hand, desirable sandy swimming areas along some estuaries on the east coast of the United States have been ruined by the deposition of fine sediments, in the form of m u d s high in organic content, as a result of upland erosion followed by stream transport into the estuary. In other instances, spoil from the dredging of navigation channels m a y , because of improper disposal, contribute to the deterioration of the swimming areas.

The development of new beach areas, the protection of beaches against erosional or depositional damage, the extension of coastlines, the development of n e w boat harbours, the development of improved sport fishing through the building of artificial reefs, are all matters which are subject to the natural, physical, chemical, biological and geological processes of the sea. Improved océanographie knowledge of these processes can materially influence the effectiveness with which plans for such develop-

177

R . Revelle

ments are brought to fruition, and hence can materially reduce the costs of successful development.

In addition, the efficiency and safety of management and use of marine recreational facilities can be improved through adequate forecasts of wind, wave and surf condi­tions, and of storm tides. It is difficult to place a monetary value on having sufficient and adequate recreational facilities available to m a n . Aesthetic values cannot readily be converted to monetary ones. Neverthless, these are also important areas of océanographie research.

178

R . Calder C o m m o n understanding of science

Ignorance of the law, it is said, is no excuse. In the mid-twentieth century ignorance of science should be no excuse. For, while the first of these statements does not assume that everyone should have a law degree, and the second should not imply that everyone should be a science graduate, the truth is that science has become the social dynamic of our times. It dominates international politics. It threatens our lives and our live­lihoods, or, if it is properly applied, it can promise a fuller and a more meaningful life. Yet a great gulf of language and of experience separates the scientist in his specialty from the wider community, and this separation is fraught with danger for our civiliza­tion and for science itself. Science, which exists to remove mystery and magic, has created its o w n mystery and its o w n magic. People, in ignorance through lack of explanation, regard science with a kind of superstitious awe and, at the same time, want science to produce those miraculous gadgets and cures which a certain type of popular journalism has taught them to expect and, indeed, to take for granted. In the absence of a proper understanding of the methods and the processes of science and of any social integration of scientific knowledge, the apparent haphazardness of discovery encourages a popular attitude towards science which is mistrustful and unhealthy. People fear what they do not understand.

Science, by its emphasis on experimental research, has forsaken natural philosophy, and in its hurried retreat from scholasticism is forgetting the scholarliness in which it m a d e c o m m o n ground with the humanities. B y the same token, those humanities have lost touch with science. Overspecialization gives the scientists the excuse for saying: ' W e have no time for other subjects'; and their colleagues in the arts, the excuse for saying: 'If it takes the scientist so long and so close a study to learn, h o w can w e be expected to understand ?' The fragmentation of science into more and more branches, each with its o w n specially invented jargon, is dividing the scientists them­selves and making it difficult or often impossible for one scientist to understand another, m u c h less m a k e himself intelligible to the wider public. In our schools and universities, by over-early and continuing segregation, one section of our citizenry is given too little science and another section too m u c h . This is as m u c h a criticism of the humanities as it is of the science faculties. It is not only a question of reconciling, somehow, the ' T w o Cultures' of which Sir Charles S n o w has spoken; it is a question of h o w far w e can get to the mass of the community an understanding of the forces

179

Impact, Vol. XTV (1964), N o . 3

R . Calder

which are determining their very existence. Pierre Auger's estimate that 90 per cent of all the scientists that have ever lived are alive today, has become a cliché. The other 10 per cent have their niches in the Corridor of Time which stretches back to the time when Thinking M a n first mastered fire.

But the word 'scientist' is itself a comparatively recent invention. The word did not exist in English nor, as far as anyone knows, in any other language until 1841. Before that the inquirer into natural phenomena was a ' m a n of science'. A s late as 1895 the London Daily News was still protesting about 'scientist' as 'this American innovation' and to his dying day H . G . Wells insisted that the proper term was ' m a n of science'.

The distinction is important. The ' m a n of science' belonged with the virtuosi, like Pepys, W r e n , Evelyn, Bishop W a r d , Governor Winthrop, William Petty (the father of political economics) as well as with Boyle and Hooke, the m e n w h o founded the Royal Society. They belonged in the Lunar Society of Birmingham, where James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, would argue music with Herschel, the Astro­nomer Royal, w h o had been a German bandmaster; where Joseph Priestley, the dis­coverer of oxygen, would discuss politics as readily as chemistry and eventually had his house in Birmingham burned for his pains by the m o b ; where Erasmus Darwin speculated about evolution, which his grandson Charles was eventually to define, and wrote poetry on his way h o m e , by moonlight, to Lichfield; where William Small could be found (who, at Williamsburg, had been Thomas Jefferson's Professor of Natural Philosophy and w h o had taught him the checks and balances of Newtonian physics which were built into the American Constitution); where Josiah W e d g w o o d , the potter, could learn from Priestley's oxidization, and go out and find non-ferrous clays for his fine white porcelain. Such m e n discussed everything, including science, with minds unbuttoned like their breeches bands. A ' m a n of science' could converse and communicate with any other educated m a n (the fact that educated m e n were a small élite, in those times, is another matter). There was no barrier of language. They were the gifted amateurs. A n y educated m a n could be intelligible to another because the scientific terms which they used were based on the roots of Latin or Greek and they meant, descriptively, what they said.

B y the middle of the nineteenth century, m e n were becoming 'scientists' and the '-ist' meant that they were ceasing to be amateurs or natural philosophers or ' m e n of science', on speaking terms with their colleagues in the humanities; they were for their o w n specialized purposes inventing their o w n language of convenience.

T w o hundred years before, in 1640, Jan Comenius, the great Bohemian education­alist, had a proposal which would have incorporated science in wisdom. His ideas of education c o m m a n d the respect of pedagogues today, but there was one aspect of his contribution which particularly affected science; that was his Pansophicon. There is no doubt that his idea was inspired by Sir Francis Bacon's 'House of Salomon' in New Atlantis but Comenius spelt it out. His idea was to create a college at which the wise m e n of the world would foregather, for a year at a time, and bring with them, and assess and explore, all the natural knowledge, collected from all over the world, and propound it and make it widely known for the adoption by m e n for their benefit. It was an idea which appealed to responsive minds in Britain, and he was invited to London. His enterprise was so well received that the Seminary of St. James's, Chelsea, was actually earmarked for the college. T h e ways and means of setting this up were to be discussed in Parliament in the fateful session in which the Civil W a r broke out.

180

C o m m o n understanding of science

Charles I lost his head; Comenius lost his college, and the building which had been assigned to the project was given by Charles II, at the instigation of Nell G w y n n , to house the veterans of wars. Today the Royal Chelsea Hospital for Pensioners is where the Pansophicon might have been. The idea did not become entirely lost; it influenced the virtuosi, w h o met as the 'Invisible College', first in London and then at Oxford, and w h o conceived the Royal Society of London, the prototype of all National Academies. In its way the Lunar Society of Birmingham was also an off­spring of the Pansophicon, and today the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies reflects Comenius's intention. But it is not only on the high, intellectual level of synthesis and assimilation, as at Princeton, that Comenius needs his present-day expression. W e need a heart-pump to spread the corpuscles of science through the body-politic. W e have to restore something of the inquiring spirit and c o m m o n understanding.

W h e n , in Britain, the Royal Society was itself becoming too remote as a learned society at the end of the eighteenth century, the Royal Institution was founded by Count Rumford. H e was an American w h o had been employed by the King of Bavaria w h o had m a d e him a Count of the Holy R o m a n Empire, and he came to London with the idea of setting up, by private subscription, 'an establishment for feeding the poor and giving them useful employment. . . connected with an institution for bringing forward into general use new inventions, and improvements, particularly such as relate to the management of heat and the saving of fuel and to various other mechanical contrivances, by which domestic comfort and economy can be promoted'. Although this institution was indeed to provide the laboratories for Sir Humphrey Davy» and for Faraday, by 1831 it had become more especially a meeting place of the intelligentsia and less committed to the people. This led to the establishment of the British Associa­tion for the Advancement of Science. The new association was founded at York in 1831 and one of its objects was to remove the obstacles which stood in the way of the advancement of science, with the clear recognition that one of these obstacles was public ignorance. T o that end m e n of science were invited into the provinces for the annual meetings, which still continue, so that the ' m a n in the m o o n ' could come d o w n to the ' m a n in the street'.

W h e n , after the middle of the nineteenth century, science became more and more specialized the British Association tried to correct this trend. In the 1860s it started lectures to the 'operative classes', and Tyndall, T . H . Huxley, Lubbock, Preece, Ayrton, Bramwell, Ball and other great figures of the times carried the facts of science into the countryside. There was a great hunger for understanding among the people, w h o were practically illiterate. In South Wales the miners organized excursion trains from the mining valleys to hear Sylvanus Thompson talk in Cardiff on electricity, and in Bradford a crowd of 3,500 millworkers listened to him with rapt attention for an hour and three-quarters.

Ray Lankester, Richard Gregory and H . G . Wells picked up the torch at the begin­ning of the twentieth century. Wells, a B . Sc. in biology, could seize on an abstruse paper by Soddy (1911) and understand enough about the transmutation of atoms and the possible release of energy to predict—to the exact year, 1932—the first artificial radio-activity.

Scientists, however, were becoming still more specialized. In 1900, the Royal Society of London abdicated its claims to be a National A c a d e m y and sponsored the British Academy, to which it referred problems of philosophy, psychology, social

181

R . Calder

science, literature and so on, while it itself became the learned society of experimental science. 'Natural philosophy' survived in the titles of Scottish university chairs, whose professors were physicists. 'Physics', which had been a term derived from Aristotle's treatises on 'natural things', had (except in the Physical Society of Edinburgh, which still belongs to biologists) been expropriated and restricted to 'the science treating of the properties of energy and matter (excluding biology and chemistry)'.

In place of the free-ranging discussions with benign wine and gentle candlelight at the Lunar Society, w e have narrower and narrower briefings in the fluorescent glare of seminars and colloquia where, in their private jargon, the scientists discuss last week's meson, the latest amino-acid synthesis, or a hair on the whisker of a banana-fly. Learned societies, themselves 'splinter' groups of natural philosophy, have sub-groups within groups and sub-sections within sections. It is not surprising, therefore, that the ordinary person thinks of science as a kind of vault to which only a graduate scientist knows the combination, and within it a series of safes labelled 'Physics', 'Chemistry', 'Biology', 'Geology', 'Astronomy', etc. A n d each of these has its special combination lock. A n d inside these safes there are lockers—vast numbers of lockers—marked 'Nuclear physics', 'Crystallography', 'Solid state', 'Colloid chemistry', 'Organic', 'Inorganic', 'Cytology', 'Genetics', 'Biophysics', 'Biochemistry', and so on ad infinitum. It is questionable whether anyone, or any body, has ever m a d e a complete list of all the so-called branches of science. W h a t makes it worse, of course, is that each invents its o w n private language. It would not be so bad if they would admit that it is their language of convenience, a shorthand, with g r a m m a -logues peculiar to the inventor and to the small esoteric group around him, but so m a n y scientists assume that their code-language is c o m m o n language and that some­h o w people are ignorant or stupid if they do not understand. M u c h even of the normal language of science has been corrupted away from meaning by usage. It would be an excellent education and discipline for all scientists if they were to take their latest monograph, eschew all scientific terminology and use, instead, descriptive phrases— not for the edification of the public (or even to oblige science writers like myself) but for their personal, private illumination. It is hard but true to say that a scientist w h o cannot explain what he is doing, does not in fact k n o w what he is doing. Every great scientist has been able to m a k e himself comprehensible—even Einstein tried ! It is the lesser scientists without the full confidence of their subject w h o m a k e them­selves defensively unintelligible. Language, therefore, is one of the worst features of this fragmentation of science; in fact, it is not too m u c h to say it is one of the causes of it.

'The trouble about science and scientific explanation is that it tends to be incomprehensible to anyone except the expert', wrote Professor H y m a n Levy in the Literary Guide, June 1955. 'Scientists in transforming social life have enormously inflated the language. The influence of the N o r m a n invasion on the English language was profound; yet h o w far-reaching the influence of modern science has hardly been assessed. Listen to a group of chemists or biologists or mathematicians talking a m o n g themselves and you will realize that most Englishmen today no longer k n o w their mother tongue. Even a foreigner m a y understand more of what is said.' (Perhaps one should interpolate 'If the foreigner is a chemist, a biologist or a mathe­matician, of a particular school of chemistry, biology or mathematics'.) Dealing with the 'language' of mathematical symbols, Professor H y m a n Levy asks: ' Y o u say you want an explanation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. W h a t kind of explanation?

182

C o m m o n understanding of science

In terms of words of the Anglo-Saxon period and therefore with very nearly the concepts prevalent at that time? In terms of the language of the seventeenth century and therefore with concepts prevalent about the time of Newton? In terms of the language of, say, 1900? In modern technical terms? In modern mathematical sym­bolism ? All these would represent attempts at explanation but h o w successful could they possibly be?' O r , this writer might add, in terms of the language of a L o n d o n bar where, over a glass of beer and bread and cheese, Professor Levy himself once gave m e a 'translation' of Einstein, which m a d e m e sound very convincing that night on the B B C . I admit it was rather like getting a Cree Indian to define atomic energy—which I once did. I found government geologists teaching Red Indian trappers in the Canadian North to look for uranium ore, and I wondered what it all meant to the Cree Indians. I asked the chief of the Crees, what, in his language, was atomic energy. H e replied: 'Eskotik-otchit kaochipyik', which means 'Lightning which comes out of rock'.

This question of terminology is probably the most important consideration in the discussion of the communication of science to the wider public. ' A nod', it is said, 'is as good as a wink to a blind horse.' A n d there is a good deal of nodding and winking by scientists in their dealings with ordinary people w h o are blind to science, or blinded by science. A s Professor Levy pointed out, scientists, regardless of their native tongue, can generally understand each other. They have enough c o m m o n ground in terms of their special subjects. This is rather like the crafstmen in the Middle Ages, w h o moved about Europe, without knowing one another's languages, but with the signs and symbols of their specialities. Their crafts really were 'mysteries' and the mechanical 'rites' under the secrecy of a brotherhood were conveyed from generation to generation and from master to apprentice. W e have in Freemasonry today the sophisticated version of the 'mysteries' of the masons of the Middle Ages w h o wandered from country to country building the great cathedrals and castles, working in localities in which they were strangers but having the c o m m o n language of their skills. They had to prove their identity as masons and their ranking quali­fications. This they did by secret signs and craft ritual. This was true of other itinerant craftsmen as well. Europe was full of potential commercial spies, trying to 'pirate' the techniques of others, but the crafts were a brotherhood, w h o , regardless of nationality, were sworn to keep each other's secrets.

Sometimes, one feels, the modern cryptic languages of the scientific specialities have been conceived, as w e once invented operational code-names during the war, not to explain but to deceive. N o r does it help w h e n scientists in one discipline borrow the terminology of another. Like the word 'plasma', for instance. The physiologists first used it about 1845 to describe the colourless liquid part of blood, lymph, milk, or muscle. A hundred years ago, the biologists embodied it in the word 'protoplasm', the living matter of cells. The classicists should, at that time, have taken exception because, from its Greek origins, the word should have meant 'mould' or 'matrix'. By their default, however, the biologists acquired it by right of usage and ultimately by the popular sanction of blood donors. W e n o w have a new science of plasma-physics, which means the physics of electrified gases. The term had been used by the fluorescence engineers to m e a n the flux of positive and negative ions in tube lamps, before it was given a new importance by researches on the harnessing of thermo­nuclear energy—the putting of the H - b o m b into dungarees for civil purposes. W h y 'plasma'? In physics, it is certainly not a 'matrix', nor is it the biologists' 'fluid'.

183

R . Calder

If there is any analogy, it is between the ions and the blood corpuscles—the opposite of the physiological usage. At a meeting in the United States, which included physicists and biologists, the physicists talked possessively about plasma until a biologist at the back of the room said plaintively: ' M r . Chairman, can w e please have our word back?' ' N o , you cannot,' said the chairman, 'the nuclear physicists have so m u c h money, they have bought it.'

Such borrowing of words causes confusion and is often completely misleading. Sometimes, one suspects, they are condescensions—an example of talking d o w n to less sophisticated brethren—or sometimes the terms are relics of a convenient analogy at the descriptive phase of a subject.

For example, w e know h o w the word 'fission* came into nuclear physics. H a h n and Strassmann found that when they bombarded uranium with neutrons the element broke up into two portions of roughly similar mass. The result was reported to then-colleague Lise Meitner, then a refugee in Stockholm. Her nephew, Otto Frisch, later Jacksonian Professor at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, was visiting her. They discussed the implications and agreed that the likely explanation was that the absorption of a neutron had disturbed the balance between the forces of attraction and repulsion within the nucleus of the uranium atom. It was as though the nucleus had become elongated and had developed a waist before dividing into two. This seemed to Frisch to be similar to the way living cells divide. W h e n he got back to Copenhagen, where he was then working in Niels Bohr's institute, he consulted a biological colleague and asked him what the biological term was and was told 'fission'. This expropriation is still appropriate.

Exact scientists invented the term 'atomic pile' and then they themselves complained that it was inaccurate; it was not 'atomic', it was 'nuclear'; and it was not a 'pile', it was a 'reactor'. Actually, in the squash court at Stagg Field, of the University of Chicago, where Fermi built it, it was called a 'pile' because its significance was k n o w n to very few and to most people it was just a heap of graphite blocks and uranium metal. But the term was a nuisance. W e got stuck with 'atomic pile'. A s science editor of the London News Chronicle, I spent nearly three years converting the readers by writing 'atomic pile (nuclear reactor)' and, gradually, 'nuclear reactor (atomic pile)'.

In the bones of every atomic age child, there are 'sunshine units' (s.u.). A n s.u. is one micro-microcurie of radio-strontium per g r a m m e of calcium—a minute dose of a radio-active poison which, with a half-life of twenty-eight years, will persist through adult life. 'Sunshine' is therefore a cynical misnomer—and deliberately so. W h e n the research workers at O a k Ridge examined the animals which had been 'dusted' by fall-out in N e w Mexico and Nevada, they discovered radio-strontium in the bones and the hides of the animals. It was realized that as an analogue of calcium, this would be a bone-seeker, which, once in the skeleton, could not be removed. The Atomic Energy Commission of the United States was warned by the scientists that this was a serious danger which had been overlooked. They were told that their work would spread alarm and despondency, and when they persisted and got the proofs which could not be ignored, the work was classified as 'Top Secret'. They called it Operation Sunshine; hence 'sunshine units'.

The most grotesque examples of misunderstandings and misrepresentation of scientific facts are to be found in the field of atomic energy. With the release of atomic energy, m a n created his o w n elemental gods. Forces like the thunder, and the light­ning, which our primitive ancestors sought to appease, have been replaced by the

184

C o m m o n understanding of science

Unseen, the Unheard, the Untasted, the Unsmelt, the Unfelt, the U n k o w n and the All-pervading—by the radiations which have broken loose from the nucleus. This has created a new superstition. That superstition, like the elemental gods, is radio­active. T h e fact that these new elements were arrived at by the exercise of reason and can be rationally measured and comprehended by the scientists is of little consolation to those w h o do not understand the ways of science, and w h o , in ignorance, instinct­ively regard science as meddling with things which would be better left alone. This is irrational and deplorable but it is the ambiance of ignorance which must be recognized in any discussion of the problems of atomic energy.

In October 1957 the World Health Organization ( W H O ) called together a group, of which I was a member , to study the mental health aspects of the peaceful uses of atomic energy. This group had at its disposal the reports of m a n y investigators in m a n y parts of the world, not only in the more sophisticated societies but also a m o n g the peoples in the less-developed countries remote from newspaper headlines or nuclear text-books. The findings of this W H O study group were superficial but, even so, very disquieting. The disturbing features became plain. O n e was the universal disquiet about atomic energy, not only of its potentialities for destruction in a nuclear war, but even of its peacetime applications. The group began to realize that the crust of our vaunted civilization was only egg-shell thick, and that, confronted with the release of immeasurable power from the infinitesimally small atom, civilized m a n tends to cower, like his Neanderthal forefathers, in the dark caves of his o w n emotions. W e were back in the 'childhood of mankind'. M a n ' s anxiety about his o w n search for knowledge and for power is reflected almost universally in myth and legend and still lurks in our o w n nature today. Prometheus, in stealing fire, the prerogative of the gods, and appropriating it for the use of m a n , was terribly punished for his presump­tuous act. Pandora wantonly unleashed forces which she could not control because, again, she trespassed on the jurisdiction of the gods, but since her action was accidental and innocent, mankind was at least left with hope. But when Faust invoked the Devil in order to usurp the power of the gods, there was nothing accidental about his actions and he was consequently d o o m e d to everlasting punishment. The association of acquisitive knowledge with evil and punishment is to be found in the story of the Garden of Eden, and also in the ancient Egyptian saying: ' W h e n m a n learns what moves the stars, the Sphinx will laugh and all life upon earth will be destroyed.'

There is a built-in fear in most people that trespassing in the U n k n o w n will invite a kind of cosmic revenge on mankind or, as the psychologists put it, 'the tendency to relapse into more primitive forms of thought and feeling which is characteristic of m u c h of the psychological reactions of the public to nuclear energy can be ascribed to a psychological mechanism k n o w n as "regression"'. The psychologists abo have an explanation for the universal fear of 'fall-out' and atomic waste. These are asso­ciated with feeding and excretion. The danger to food is generally the most disquieting concern about fall-out or the risks of a nuclear mishap and, so the psychologists say, there is a symbolic association between atomic waste and body waste.

At the time when the W H O study group was in session, there had been a mishap at the British atom factory at Windscale in Cumberland and w e had pasted around the room the clippings from the world press reporting the incident. These reports were highly illuminating. A reactor had burned out, but it had been dealt with by firemen— daring firemen, but nevertheless firemen, a familiar concept to the public. O n the first

185

R . Calder

day, the most prudent papers had given the incident big headlines and extensive reports, and even the most sensational papers had been factual and reassuring in their presentation of the incident. Here was the proof that an atomic reactor did not explode like a b o m b and that firemen could cope with it. O n the second day, the Atomic Energy Authority of Great Britain sent out monitoring vans to sample the herbage, the water, etc., in the surrounding countryside, just to m a k e sure that no radio-active materials had escaped into the atmosphere and been deposited. This again m a d e 'big stories' but they were still not alarmist; they gave the facts and treated the monitoring as a sensible precaution by the Atomic Energy Authority ( A E A ) . O n the third day, the headlines exploded: the A E A had collected hundreds of gallons of milk because traces of radio-active iodine had been found in the local supplies. T h e milk was d u m p e d in the sea.

A s we studied the third day's headlines, H a n s Hoff, the Viennese psychiatrist w h o was the chairman of the study group, said to m e : 'Obviously all the editors were breast fed.' It was, to him, a perfect example of 'regression'.

The Windscale incident, in fact, did no harm to public health, but the 'breast-fed editors' continued to report monitorings showing that the winds had carried traces of the radio-active iodine which had escaped into the atmosphere. This raised relevant questions of public responsibility. The Atomic Energy Authority had, from the outset, kept the press well informed. The press, by and large, and apart from headlines, had treated the incident factually, yet the general effect had been to spread alarms and implant n e w fears and evoke regressive instincts out of all proportion to the measurable risks. W a s this blameworthy? Should the A E A have tried to suppress the facts or issue reassuring statements? Should the press have 'played d o w n ' the facts which were m a d e available or which they would have discovered s o m e h o w ? This was not misinformation; it was information purveyed to a scientifically ill-informed public which, with instinctive fear aroused, would have distrusted any official reassurance, however well based or well meant.

There is no safety in ignorance. The Mental Health Study Group studied apathy. O n e would have assumed that this was a sort of emotional carapace, but it was not ; it was the 'fear of being afraid'. People knew enough, sensed enough, or guessed enough to have their unspoken fears, and they shrank from facts which might confirm or exaggerate those fears. Their attitude was not 'don't care' but 'don't want to k n o w ' . A n d the psychologists recognized of course that this abdication does not produce reassurance but a neurosis which in the mass can give rise to social malaise. It is better to have rational fears than irrational ones.

A n d so nuclear superstition grew up. The only way to combat superstition is to confront it with reason. But what happens if the custodians of reason are not believed ? The study group found that scientists themselves were mistrusted. In part this was due to the primitive sense that they were interfering with things which they should not touch, but also in part to the manifest evidence of their achievements—people remember the b o m b but they forget penicillin. But the most serious part was the dis­trust of the motivations of the scientists' evidence.

If the release of atomic energy had not happened behind the silent walls of secrecy, if there had been free discussion a m o n g scientists everywhere, the processes of the discovery and the release would have 'got through to the public' and would have prepared people for the greatest achievement of m a n since he mastered fire. Instead, without any preparation of the public, it exploded with the violence of a b o m b . T h e

186

C o m m o n understanding of science

conditions of military secrecy continued and, also, the fears engendered by the original b o m b s persisted because of the testing of bigger and bigger weapons.

Scientists became the spokesmen of government policies. They were called upon not only to give the facts, within the limitation of their specialized knowledge but to extrapolate those facts beyond that knowledge and to pass judgements and to express opinions.

W h e n this role of the scientists was questioned in our discussions of the W H O study group, Hans Hoff said : 'I k n o w exactly the difficulty. A s a psychiatrist I a m put into the witness box to testify to the psychiatric condition of the accused. This I do and then, invariably, I a m asked by the judge: " W a s he responsible for his actions w h e n he committed the crime ?" I a m asked to pass a social judgement which has nothing to do with science.'

Aside from the question whether the 'social judgement' of the expert is sound or not, he is extremely vulnerable w h e n he becomes a spokesman. His facts, which m a y be strictly accurate within the limitations of his expertise at any given time, m a y be overtaken by events or they m a y be contradicted, or appear to be contradicted, by his colleagues. The difficulty is that, to the general public, 'scientist' is a generic term; the ordinary person does not distinguish between a physicist, a chemist, or a biologist. A physicist, dealing with exact measurements, sounds categorical; a biolo­gist, accustomed to m a n y more variables, can appear m u c h more frank about his reservations—he can 'hedge his bets'—but, in an emotion-charged dialogue on, say, radiation hazards, if a biologist queries or qualifies the position taken by a physicist, the generic 'scientist' has contradicted himself.

The fact that scientists, and the authority of science, have been invoked in recent years to promote policies, or to win appropriations or contracts, or to defend govern­ment agencies and industrial concerns, or to 'reassure the public' on subjects such as fall-out or thalidomide, has tended to make people suspicious of their motives and question the integrity of their facts.

Even more difficult to analyse than the relationship of the scientist to the general public is the relationship of the politician to the scientist; it is a love-hate relationship. A s the published report of the W H O Study G r o u p on the Mental Aspects of Atomic Energy1 stated : 'With regard to science and the scientists, the position of political leaders is often fraught with additional difficulties. F e w , if any, have the background which includes a thorough scientific training, yet they are called upon to face situa­tions which have been built up, little by little, through the work of scientists and which require for solution some conception of the ultimate implications of the scientific w o r l d . . . .

'Lack of adequate conceptual background m a y lead to a tendency to m a k e a programme without real plans, and this can lead to tremendous insecurity.'

(The mass-audience of British television heard the heart-cry of Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister w h o had concurred with President T r u m a n in the decision to drop the b o m b s on Japan. ' A H I k n e w was that it was a bigger b o m b . I k n e w nothing at all about fall-out, nor the genetic effects. A n d as far as I k n o w President T r u m a n and Winston Churchill knew nothing of those things either. Whether the scientists directly concerned knew, or guessed, I do not know. But, as far as I a m aware, they said nothing of it to those w h o had to m a k e the decision. I a m no scientist, you k n o w . '

1. N o . 151 of the Technical Reports series, Geneva, W H O , 1958.

187

R . Calder

H . J. Muller had been awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the mutations of genes.by radiation in 1927, eighteen years before.)

'Another aspect which generates anxiety is the uncertainty about w h o actually wields the power,' said the W H O report. ' In one sense, the politician has power over the scientist, but in another, he is dependent on the scientist and hence is in his power. In this respect an entirely new situation has arisen in m a n y countries of the modern world.'

This danger of 'the tyranny of the expert' is, and should be, a matter of real public concern. The faceless m e n at the elbows of the scientifically uneducated are becoming decision-makers without being answerable to the community.

Scientists do not m a k e the task of c o m m o n understanding any easier when they vacillate between statements which are limited to their scientific competence and state­ments which wear a meretricious mantle of science but which are actually expressions of value and even of policy decision.

O n e of the value judgements passing as scientific truths is the concept of ' m a x i m u m permissible dosage' of radiation. This belongs not to science but to the 'philosophy of risk'. It has no more scientific authority than the forty-mile-an-hour speed-limit sign on a highway, yet scientists, including m a n y eminent ones, have got into the habit of quoting 'm.p .d . s ' as though they were scientific units. T h e bandying of ' m . p . d . s ' by spokesmen-scientists in discussing such things as fall-out, either to minimize or exaggerate the risks, has bamboozled the public and increased its distrust of the scientist. The ' m a x i m u m permissible dosage' for the individual (the radiologist or the radiochemist) w h o accepts the risks as part of the day's work is far in excess of the dosage which is socially acceptable by the population at large, which has been given no vocational choice and upon whose lives (and genes) radiation is trespassing. A n d so, in the case of radio-strontium, instead of 1,000 s.u. (and later 500 s.u.) which an individual worker might tolerate in a lifetime, the ' m . p . d . ' for general tolerance was fixed by the 'philosophers of risk', w h o internationally decide these things, at 100 s.u. That means that the average (non-vocational) person should not be expected to receive, at worst, more than a ten-millionth of a curie in the space of a lifetime. Both the United States National Academy of Science and the Medical Research Council ( M R C ) of the United K i n g d o m had reservations even about that. The M R C said that if as m u c h as 10 s.u. appeared in the bones of a large number of the population, especially children, they would have to think again. This was a social, or public health, judgement and not, as became popularly assumed, a scientific definition based on experimental evidence. All that the M R C was saying was: ' W e k n o w enough to k n o w what w e don't k n o w . '

O n the basis of such comparative ' m . p . d . s ' , the eminent physicist, Lord Cherwell, went on public record pooh-poohing the effects of fall-out which in relation to natural cosmic rays, to which w e are all exposed, would offer (according to him) no more risk than 'walking 200 feet up a hill'. N o w everyone was confused between hill-climbing and 'm.p .d . s ' . W h e n the next series of tests took place there was public alarm and despondency because the bones in sheep exposed to radio-strontium on rainy, calcium-deficient hillsides, were found to have 13 to 15 s.u. and children were found to have 2.5 s.u. Note well: the ' m . p . d . ' was no longer 1,000 s.u., nor even 100 s.u. but that cautious 10 s.u. which would m a k e the Medical Research Council think again. A social concept, ' m . p . d . ' , had become a measurement which the public regarded like the degrees on a clinical thermometer!

188

C o m m o n understanding of science

The sequel is interesting. In November 1963, W H O , F A O , and I A E A , the United Nations agencies, brought together world experts at Geneva to consider the radiation hazards from peacetime accidents. This meeting followed the suspension of tests, so that the officiai scientists were no longer looking over their shoulders, speaking with their tongues in their cheeks, nor waiting for government reprimands if they said anything which, even if true, would be officially indiscreet. The consensus of that meeting was that in terms of the population at large no dosage was permissible, neither maximal nor minimal. All radiation beyond the natural was to be assumed to be bad. If an accident to a nuclear installation was to occur and there was to be an escape of radiation of any kind, no one was to say: 'Until the dosage is so-an-so, there is nothing to worry about.' Everyone's job, urgently, must be to restore the environment to normal. A pseudo-scientific unit which had bewildered the public for eighteen years was thus discarded, as far as public health was concerned, although its usefulness as a guide to risk still applied to the radiological protection of individuals.

Over a century ago, the famous French physiologist, Claude Bernard, m a d e a pronouncement which his modern successors would do well to heed: 'True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.' W h e n the entire living environment has become a laboratory, scientists ought to be restrained within the limits of their knowledge; they ought to admit to themselves what they do not know. Fall-out is a case in point (although w e can think of pesticides and n e w drugs like thalidomide) because it should remind them to compare notes with their colleagues in other disci­plines. Within a few weeks of an eminent (official) scientist making a statement that fall-out would always be localized, radio-strontium and other dangerous radio-isotopes were being globally distributed. F r o m remote Pacific testing-grounds they were being deposited by the rains right round the Northern Hemisphere by the climatic jet-streams. They were being scattered in the United States, Britain, France and the U . S . S . R . (as well as over the non-atomic countries); the radio-active chickens were coming h o m e to roost. H o w could a mistake of that magnitude be m a d e ? For two reasons: the hydrogen b o m b had punched a hole into the stratosphere and it was assumed that the radio-active gases, including radio-active krypton, would dissipate themselves in the stratosphere. But radio-active krypton decays rapidly into atoms of radio-strontium. It was also assumed that the troposphere would prevent the return of radio-activity from the stratosphere. But the troposphere is not continuous. There is the equatorial troposphere and the polar troposphere and between the two there is a kind of fanlight, or oubliette, through which the particulates of radio-strontium returned to the atmosphere to be deposited, with rain.

The awareness of that oversight did not discourage the single-minded physicists from exploding the so-called 'rainbow b o m b ' in the V a n Allen radiation belt, a thou­sand miles above the earth. It was already k n o w n that this belt was important in relation to the magnetic fields of the earth. In October 1961, the International Astrono­mical Union had appealed to all governments not to carry out such experiments. Scientists all over the world protested against the 'rainbow b o m b ' when it was proposed. In Britain, the Prime Minister was asked to intervene. His reply in Parliament was an attempt to reassure: his scientific advisers were not unduly worried. A n d anyway what was all the fuss about? N o one had known about the Van Allen belt a year before ! The American project went ahead. It did disturb the magnetic effects, with consequences still being watched.

189

R . Calder

Another example of blinkered science comes from a conference on the disposal of atomic waste. A marine biologist was asked whether he saw any objection to depositing radio-active materials in the depths of the sea. H e said, ' N o ' ; the safest place to be, in terms of natural background radiation from rocks and cosmic rays was on the high seas. The rocks are far below shielded by a dense amount of water and cosmic rays do not penetrate very deeply. So, if there was no radiation, there would be no harm in adding some. It took those of us w h o were participating in that meeting some time to 'sort out' the fallacy. It is this : creatures and plants, exposed to natural radiation, have evolved in spite of it, and because of it ; but if the radiation is artificially increased, the doubling of the mutation rate would produce evolutionary havoc. If, in the depths of the sea, creatures have never been subjected to natural radiation, what would be the doubling effect (from zero) of introducing radiation ?

A sobering reminder of the lack of 'togetherness' a m o n g scientists and technologists was given at the United Nations Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of Less Developed Areas ( U N C S A T ) at Geneva in February 1963. In the Indus Valley, in West Pakistan, where the population is increas­ing at the rate of ten more mouths to be fed every five minutes, an acre of land is being lost, every five minutes, by waterlogging and salinity.

In the nineteenth century, the British began a big programme of farm settlement in lands which, though fertile, had remained desert through low rainfall. Barrages and distribution canals were constructed and those engineering works have been massively extended and the irrigation intensified since Pakistan became independent. The 23 million acres watered by the canals is the largest single irrigated region in the world. Today the system and the livelihoods of 30 million people w h o depend upon it are seriously threatened. Over 40,000 miles of canals have been dug into the surface of the Indus Plain. Apart from the water which is spread over the fields, some 40 per cent of the water in the unlined distribution canals seeps underground and does not find its way back into the river and thence to the sea. The result is that the water table has risen. Before the canals, the water table was generally well below the surface. Only in areas close to the river was it between five and fifteen feet below the surface. After seventy years of irrigation, the picture has completely changed. T h e water table of large areas has risen close to the surface, and low-lying areas have become water­logged, drowning the crops. In other parts, the water creeps continually upwards from the water table to the surface where it evaporates, leaving its dissolved salts to accumulate in the top layers of the soil, poisoning the crops. At the same time the irrigation régime, which used on an average one-and-a-half feet of water, spreads the surface water with its o w n dissolved salts so thinly that it evaporates, leaving a crust of salt. The combination of waterlogging and salination is producing deterioration at the rate of about 100,000 acres a year. At the request of President A y u b K h a n , the late President Kennedy sent out a United States mission which came to the conclusion that the reclamation, using tube wells and electric p u m p s as well as n e w agricultural methods, will take twenty-five years and cost $ U . S . 2,000 million! The mission which carried out the 'post-mortem' included specialists from a dozen disciplines. In the process which had caused the damage, the engineers had built superb barrages, the canal-builders had done their job (but it would have been better with lined canals); soil scientists, soil physicists, soil chemists, agronomists, etc., had satisfied themselves according to what each knew, but missing were those w h o could have told them about the hydrological nature of the Indus Valley. A n d no one, of course, had consulted

190

C o m m o n understanding of science

the archaeologists of Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus civilization of 5,000 years ago, which existed on inland delta drainage.

Another saying of Claude Bernard applies to the responsibilities of the modern scientists : ' W h e n you enter your laboratory, put off your imagination as you take off your coat ; but put it on again, with your overcoat, when you leave. Before an experi­ment and between whiles let your imagination wrap you round; put it right away from you during the experiment itself lest it hamper you and your power of observation.'

Outside his laboratory, the scientist is entitled to use his imagination in politics, in religion, or in any other social concern. Indeed, it is his duty to do so. H e ought to have some regard for the use, misuse, abuse, or non-use of his discoveries. H e is a functional citizen and should be expected, as the repository of information, to m a k e that information intelligibly available, and, also, with a sense of responsibility, to put forward arguments on which social judgements can be sensibly m a d e and without which social judgements cannot be m a d e . Today, m a n y scientists, including the most eminent, earnestly accept this responsibility. They take the initiative on great issues— issues which science itself dictates—without arrogating to themselves the powers of the invisible experts, the faceless m e n , and bring their knowledge to the bar of public opinion. The Pugwash Movement is the conspicuous and impressive example of this. Scientists, in this way, can form a very powerful benevolent 'lobby' in the interest of the lives and livelihoods of their fellow humans.

Indeed today, the scientists have done a great deal, in what C . P . Snow has labelled 'The T w o Cultures', to bridge the gap—but the bridge has to come from both sides, to meet in the middle.

C o m m o n understanding of science does not m e a n just what is conveyed through the popular press or radio or television or films, m u c h of which is n o w being done very ably and is introducing the ordinary person not only to the exciting developments of science but to the ways in which the scientist goes to work. Science has to be understood at all levels. If w e are to have science effectively administered by govern­ments and public bodies or by the boards of industries, w e have to educate those w h o are to form the judgements about science and to decide priorities. M e n of affairs have to be sufficiently well informed to k n o w what it is that the scientist is talking about, otherwise they m a y find themselves carried away by the enthusiasm of the scientist, caught by the glamour of the latest 'scientific cult' or just bemused by the jargon of science. Conversely, m u c h that is worthwhile goes a-begging because those w h o have to take the decisions cannot properly understand.

I once asked the chairman of the board of a corporation based on modern science h o w m a n y scientists he had on his board. ' T w o ' , he said, 'and that is two too m a n y . ' O n e could understand his difficulty, without accepting his verdict. His scientific colleagues, according to him, did not k n o w h o w to explain w h y they always wanted more and more graduates and more and more expensive equipment but, worse, they did not k n o w when to 'freeze' a development. Each new experiment or new item in the literature suggested improvements which they felt they must embody, while the production engineer was fretting to get the model on the production line.

It is probable that Joseph Priestley, still tangled up with 'phlogiston', did not m a k e 'oxygen' very clear to his fellow-members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, but as they argued and discussed m a n y things, the 'message' of oxidization somehow got through to W e d g w o o d , the potter, because with Withering (discoverer of digitalis as

191

R . Calder

a treatment for dropsy), an amateur geologist, he went out and found non-ferrous clays and 'witherite' (barium carbonate) and finally produced his famous white pottery. S o m e h o w m e n of science and m e n of business managed to communicate in those days.

This problem is one of education, at all ages. W h e n people ask 'At what age do you teach a child science?' the answer is simple: from the m o m e n t a child lisps ' W h y ? ' Innate curiosity has to be encouraged instead of the child being told: 'Wait until you k n o w all about kinetics and dynamics and you will understand.' T o discourage curio­sity is to discourage scientific inquiry in later years. Recently, at an educational con­ference, I was asked to speak on 'Teaching science in general education in the year A . D . 2000'. I said I hoped that w e would not be teaching 'science' as a subject in general education forty years from n o w , but that science would pervade—be as natural as the blood corpuscles—and that specialization would be reserved for m u c h later in the student's life. Moreover, every university student should be introduced to scien­tific method and given the background which will m a k e him, even w h e n he is not going to be a career scientist, capable of evaluating science. A n essential attribute of the rounded m a n in this day and age is that he should k n o w about the forces which are changing and dominating his life and affecting culture in all its aspects. This is a challenge to educators in every country—those which w e call 'developing' as well as those which are highly developed scientifically and technologically.

In all this, the present-day science writers have a peculiar responsibility. There are not enough of them and not all of them understand, nor do all of whose w h o do understand accept, the function of social interpretation which has been elaborated here. M a n y regard their 'popularization' merely as the explanation of the latest gadget or of the latest cure or of some exciting new theory. This is the easiest of all science writing. If the scientist, w h o has the facts, is patient, and the journalist, w h o has to simplify these facts, is patient, there is practically no scientific advance however abstruse it m a y seem at first sight which cannot be m a d e intelligible to the general reader. The expositor m a y be a science graduate trained as a journalist or a journalist w h o has acquired the necessary background of science. In either case, he (or she) must have the craft of presenting difficult concepts in ways which will arrest and hold the interest of readers (or listeners or viewers) w h o are not predisposed to science.

There are m a n y layers of explanation. The scientist writing in his o w n scientific journal, for his o w n immediate colleagues, can use all the jargon he likes. If he is writing for a wider scientific group, he has to be less cryptic and more descriptive but he can still assume (a) that they k n o w the basic concepts and (b) that they will con­centrate on what he is trying to explain. Then there are journals about science (as distinct from scientific journals) purveying a great variety of scientific subjects for earnest people w h o m a y not be scientists but w h o want to keep themselves informed. Such journals perform a very important function because they 'brief well-meaning politicians, civil servants, company directors, teachers of the humanities, etc.; they are for an educated élite w h o will grapple with a subject provided that the language does not defeat them. Then there are the 'serious' newspapers which will give space for explanations and whose readers will give attention, again provided that they are not expected to understand the terminology until they have been introduced to it. Then there are the large-circulation newspapers the function of which is to inform (or entertain) rather than to educate. This means 'sneaking up on the reader' and surprising him into being interested in a subject which he would otherwise avoid.

192

C o m m o n understanding of science

A n d there is the level of the 'comic strip' which is not to be altogether despised. In Britain a whole generation was prepared for space travel, years before the first space capsule was launched into orbit, by the 'Adventures of D a n Dare ' . Children knew far more than the grown-ups about M a c h numbers, weightlessness, orbits and stagings. This was impressed upon m e by a fourteen-year-old w h o , on the morning Sputnik I went up, asked h o w it was done. I told him all about propellants, boosters, etc. H e listened to m e politely and then said: 'I k n o w all that. But h o w did they get it into that particular orbit?' H e was more interested in the science than in the technology. His instructor had been D a n Dare, a comic strip with a great amount of substantial information 'built-in'.

For 'journals' and 'newspapers' read films, television and radio. The same consider­ations apply. O n e can have programmes which are suitable only for a closed circuit with a 'captive audience' of university students. There are others for which viewers are prepared to get up at unearthly hours of the morning, or sit up late at night, to watch as a form of advanced education. There are others which deal with subjects with which viewers ' m a k e a date', just as they would buy a journal about science. Other programmes are elaborately and dramatically produced for m u c h wider audiences, numbering millions. A n d one can say that, after a suspicious start, scientists and doctors are beginning to realize the difficulties and values of television expositions. Indeed, it is useful for anyone, even when commiting an idea to paper, to ask himself ' W h a t could the camera make of this?' It makes the idea visible and concrete, since the camera cannot deal with abstractions.

It is not without significance that the origins of journalistic science writing (as distinct from the commendable efforts of eminent scientists to reach the c o m m o n people through the printed word) can be said to stem from the 1920s when Waldemar Kaemppfert organized a science exhibition in Chicago and expressed the scientific advances of the day in the visible. H e became science editor of the New York Times and doyen of what one might call the 'resident science journalists'. H e became the third recipient of the international, Unesco-awarded Ralinga Prize. W h e n , in the Britain of the 1930s, I was one of three (only three) science reporters on national newspapers, I found the need to become involved in documentary films so that I could have the stern discipline of ' W h a t could the camera m a k e of this?', because the craft of science writing depends on the written imagery, the simile, the metaphor and the commonplace example which gets a toe-hold on the reader's imagination. O n e might call science writing 'word cartooning' because, like the cartoonist, the writer has to rely on bold lines, with a m i n i m u m of fussy detail, and he fails (like the cartoonist) if he has to rely on 'balloons' of explanation of what he should have m a d e self-evident.

The opportunities which television n o w makes available to the expositor are exciting. The viewer can actually share the adventure which is science, take part with the experi­menter in the excitement of actually seeing something—the virus cell under the electron microscope or the hind-side of the M o o n . Television also converts the scientist from the remote 'genius', or disembodied brain, into a life-sized h u m a n being going about his job.

The mere explanation of science, however, is not enough; it has to be translated into the lives and experience of ordinary people. There have to be, in this day and age, interpreters.

The crisis of our times is the breakdown of communications, not only in the seman­tics of politics and ideologies, but in this all-important area of science. Our lives, our

193

R . Calder

hopes, our survival as a species depend upon the uses which are m a d e of science. T o progress, w e have to use scientific discoveries and knowledge to the utmost. Science in the advanced countries is moving so fast that it is almost impossible to keep up with the knowledge and the gadgets. Science feeds fundamental truths to technology; technology feeds back more and more elaborate instruments to science; they speed each other up. Over 3.5 million original scientific papers are published every year and the increase is exponential. W i s d o m is being drowned in a Niagara of information. The various branches of science are out of step, encouraged or discou­raged by 'cults' which impress the money-givers into providing disproportionate budgets. In the atmosphere of Cold W a r suspicions, large areas of science are still enclosed within the barbed wire of military security. M u c h is circumscribed by indus­trial secrecy. M u c h more is fenced off by the jargon of over-specialization. O n e set of scientists does not k n o w what another set is doing, even when their areas of work impinge and m a y have a critical relevance to each other. In the aggregation of experi­mental knowledge we have lost the sense of natural philosophy. With a singleminded-ness that would have astounded the eighteenth century, schools of research pursue their objectives. W e are n o w in the cult of D N A and the study of deoxyribonucleic acid and molecular biology—probing the secret of life before w e k n o w what w e are going to do with it when w e have got it. Over $6,000 million a year is spent on space research—only a small fraction of the $43,000 million which the nations spend on armaments, but twice as m u c h as is invested in the developing countries.

There are too few communicators within science and between the humanities and science. H o w are we to teach people about science to enable them to m a k e judgements and to see that, with the inalienable rights of curiosity and the quest for knowledge unimpaired, science, with all its potential for good or evil, shall be directed to the benefit of all mankind ? While w e should certainly be encouraging the aspirations of M a n in breaking the gravitational boundary walls of his planet, are w e really maintaining at the same time a proper sense of priorities ? H o w m u c h more resources and attention should w e be giving to the problems of this planet on which 3,000 million people today and 4,000 million by 1980 will have to contrive to live in conditions more con­sistent with h u m a n dignity than most of them n o w enjoy? Is space adventure more important than food and population problems for instance? A n d h o w , with all the spectacular advances of today, can w e close the widening gap between the prosperity, scientifically and technologically produced, in the advanced countries and the poverty of two-thirds of the world ? The U N C S A T conference spelled out what w e k n o w and what is needed. While w e would be grateful for some new breakthrough—giving to food problems, for example, the kind of answers which sulpha drugs, antibiotics and D D T gave to medical services—it was evident from that conference that there are answers already waiting to be applied, and that it is not a question of knowledge but of intention. It is a question of sharing knowledge and skills and resources that w e already have at our disposal.

These are social judgements, fraught with stupendous meaning, and they must be based on a proper understanding of science and what it can m a k e available. This transfer of knowledge and skills has to be done rapidly if the Scientific and Technological Revolution is to give substance to the Revolution of Rising Expecta­tions, which, as more and m o r e countries become independent, becomes more and more insistent. Freedom is not enough. O n the morning after independence free peoples wake up to find that they are still as hungry, still as sick, still as impoverished

194

C o m m o n understanding of science

as they were before. There can be no political stability, no lessening of tensions, until the disparity between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' is reduced.

The developing countries need scientific and technical education but this means something more than teaching machines, however useful they m a y be; it means the creation of the climate of numeracy as well as literacy, in which the growth of modern skills can be encouraged. The c o m m o n understanding of science, therefore, becomes an urgent necessity. People have to grasp and discriminate. A s Professor P. M . S. Blackett has pointed out, when the developing countries go shopping in the super­market of science, they must k n o w what they are shopping for.

O n e of the interesting facts I have discovered in going into the developing countries is that it will be simpler to convey science to them, through their vernacular press, than it was to reach popular understanding in m y o w n country. First, they have no inhibitions about 'science'; it does not suggest something that only brainy people can understand nor, as in advanced countries, is it so m u c h a threat to their lives or their livelihoods. Secondly, in their o w n vernacular, they have none of the goobledigook terms of sophisticated science. Therefore explanations have to be descriptive (as in the most effective science writing anywhere) even if the articles leave them to compile a mental glossary of the terms to which they have been properly introduced.

The professional science writer has opportunities that few other people can hope to have. H e is a 'synoptic scientist' w h o travels across the advancing fronts of all the branches of science and he can witness at first hand and panoramically what pre­occupied scientists cannot see for themselves and what m e n of affairs can never observe from their desks. His job is to pass that knowledge on either along the lines of science, from one branch to another, or out from science to the public. H e is, by the nature of his trade, a collector and disseminator, the prototype of what should exist in academic and in public life—the communicator of information on which judgements can be m a d e . His direct function is to convey to the public the facts about science but also, I insist, to interpret the social implications of what he knows about new develop­ments. M a n y science writers do not share this view and think that their o w n concern should be with descriptions and explanations of the ' h o w ' and leave value judgements to others. I profoundly disagree. The science writer's access to information and his point of vantage overlooking the scientific scene give him a responsibility which, in the present situation, he must not shirk. M y o w n experience opened to m e the once-closed doors of science but the insight and experience which I gained opened the door to a wider world again. I have had the privilege of travelling round the world, mainly for the United Nations and its agencies, to see h o w science and technology can be applied for the c o m m o n good of mankind. W h e n I was invited to become Professor of International Relations, it was the recognition by one university that science and technology had become the social dynamic of our times and that healthy international relations depend upon this being commonly understood.

195

Science and technology in developing areas

Sixty natural scientists, along with social scientists and economists, met recently in India for the twelfth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.1 The conference addressed itself to current problems of disarmament and world security.

Priorities for science and technology in developing nations were discussed at considerable length by some of the working groups. They raised questions such as: H o w m a y international investments in development be encouraged for the creation of a better world ? H o w m a y poor countries produce a sufficient and growing number of well-qualified scientists and technicians? H o w m a y higher education be best organized ? H o w can the loss of scientists from poor countries to rich countries be stopped? H o w m a y agriculture and food production be improved?

In their search for replies the participants stressed the moral principles involved in co-operation for development: first, that all States should recognize that there is more than one feasible road to development, and that the choice must be left to each developing country, acting through its o w n political processes without coercion either military, political or economic, and free from interference from outside; and secondly, that all assistance should promote the political, economic and cultural independence of the recipient countries. These indeed have been the guiding principles in the Technical Assistance programmes of the United Nations and its agencies.

S o m e original suggestions for the financing of international investment for a better world were put forward by the conference. A n independent revenue for the United Nations programmes in science and technology should c o m e from exploitation of resources which are yet largely outside the jurisdiction of national States and which have hitherto not been m a d e sources of revenue by national taxing authorities, e.g., space traffic and space communications, the resources of the oceans outside the limits of national jurisdiction, including minerals on the ocean bottom, and the potential resources of Antarctica. While the situation is still fluid, a treaty should be negotiated giving the United Nations jurisdiction over outer space, the oceans outside recognized national limits, and Antarctica, this jurisdiction to include exclusive rights to regulate and to tax wealth-producing activities from these areas.

1. See Impact, Vol. XIII (1963), N o . 4, page 310, editorial note describing the organization and activities of the Pugwash conferences.

197

Impact, Vol. XTV (1964), N o . 3

Science and technology in developing areas

A ' S u m m a r y of Suggestions and Recommendations' m a d e by a working group of the conference outlines a broad programme for co-operation through science and technology for the benefit of the developing areas.1 This summary reads as follows:

1. Irrespective of disarmament each developed country should consider contribut­ing 1 per cent of its gross national product towards the development of poor countries, 5 per cent of which should go to the advancement of science and technology.

2. T h e scientific societies in the developed countries should set up committees to advise and assist international agencies concerned with aid and development. All countries should seek to encourage a feeling of responsibility amongst their scientists towards the advancement of science in the developing countries.

3. T h e resources of the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies should be increased by providing them with direct sources of revenue outside the jurisdiction of national States such as could be derived from taxation on space traffic and c o m m u ­nication, the resources of the oceans outside the limits of national jurisdiction, includ­ing minerals from the ocean bottom and from Antarctica.

4. Aid should be removed from the context of the cold war, firstly, by international agreements which would ensure that an increasing proportion of aid for development would be given through the multilateral agencies of the United Nations; and secondly by c o m m o n international enterprises for the developing countries, involving scien­tists and technicians from East and West, North and South.

5. Education is of supreme importance for developing countries, and should be given very high priority. T h e scientific attitude should pervade the whole of the educa­tional process in the schools and the importance of applied as well as pure science should be stressed.

6. T h e teaching of science in developing countries could gain m u c h benefit from a study of the new methods n o w being applied in the advanced countries.

7. For the developing countries, their o w n research is an indispensable instrument for their advancement and no investment of resources is so profitable. It should be generously supported on an increasing scale, the limitation being only the availability of competent people to do the work.

8. In the early stages, particular attention should be given to researches important for a country's economic development, especially those related to its natural resources and their effective exploitation. Basic research not directed to immediate practical ends should also be supported.

9. T h e programme for research in a developing country should be under the control of a research council or academy provided with financial resources and largely guided by scientists, engineers and technologists.

10. M u c h of the research in a country should be conducted within its universities. If specialized institutes are established, they should be located near a university and with close and friendly connexions with it, and with a mutual interchange of staff and students for teaching and research.

11. A variety of forms of exchange between staff and research students in universi-

1. The full report of Working Group IV has been published in Pugwash Newsletter (Vol. I, N o . 4, April 1964) issued quarterly by the Continuing Committee of the Pugwash Con­ference on Science and World Affairs, and edited by Professor J. Rotblat, 8 Asmara Road, London, N . W . 2.

198

Science and technology in developing areas

ties and other insitutions of higher learning in the developed and developing countries should be adopted to their mutual advantage.

12. The loss of scientists from the developing nations by emigration to the advanced countries should be stopped by reducing the gap in the conditions of work between scientists in rich and poor countries, and by guaranteeing suitable positions to scien­tists being trained abroad on their return.1

13. International co-operation for aid to developing countries could be particularly appropriate and effective in distinguishing and analysing the major problems involved in the development of a country or region. It is suggested that an Institute for Resources Analysis should be set up within the United Nations family as a semi-autonomous commission or institute. It would be responsible for identifying the major problems, for organizing competent groups from universities all over the world to analyse them, and for making recommendations for action.

14. The National Commissions for Unesco should be strengthened by the inclusion of more natural scientists and engineers than they commonly contain at present.

15. The World Health Research Centre, whose establishment is n o w under consider­ation by W H O , should consider undertaking a m o n g its other responsibilities research on major health problems of world-wide significance, including the development of methods to obtain reliable information on the extent of disease all over the world, its consequences, and the social and environmental factors involved.

16. The United Nations and its agencies should develop consulting services, reference collections of technological information, and a central exchange to publicize the needs of developing countries for specific items of knowledge.

1. See C . V . Kidd, 'The Growth of Science and the Distribution of Scientists among Nations', Impact, Vol. X I V (1964), N o . 1.

199

a study of general categories applicable to classification and coding in documentation

A number of studies are at present being carried out in all countries of the world on information retrieval. T h e introduction into this field of methods which c o m e under the head of what is often called non-numerical information processing, especially by means of electronic computers, has brought about major changes in the usual proce­dures evolved long ago by librarians and bibliographers, particularly in the classifi­cation of documents. T h e object of the report is to draw attention to present-day trends in the n e w classi­fication and codification methods, in so far as one of their main characteristics is concerned—the way in which they represent the logical and semantic 'general categories' applicable to all branches of science. A chapter has also been included on the treatment of these general categories in the broad documentary classifications of knowledge, and especially in the Universal Decimal Classification. In view of the importance recently attributed to the linguistic side of research into the automatic processing of scientific information, one section of the study has been devoted to an investigation of the main problems involved in expressing the 'general categories' in linguistic systems, whether the languages concerned are natural languages or the various 'artificial' international languages which have been invented. T h e work will be of interest, therefore, not only to documentalists but also to special­ists in information processing, while certain aspects will interest linguists and logicians and even philosophers, w h o will be intrigued to see h o w the epistemological categories which, since Aristotle's day, have given rise to so m u c h mental effort on their part, are used in practice in documentary systems.

Price: | 3 15/- (stg.) 10.50 F 248 p. Obtainable from the Unesco Bookshop, Place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e, C C P 12.598-48

Synthèses Revue mensuelle internationale paraissant à Bruxelles sous la direction de Maurice L A M B I L L I O T T E

Sommaire du numéro 220 de septembre 1964

En marge du centenaire de l'Internationale socialiste, par Maurice L A M B I L L I O T T E

Aspects du libéralisme politique dans la première moitié du xixe siècle, par Ivo R E N S

Regard sur Roger Godei et son œuvre, par Alice G O D E L Charles Baudouin, 1893-1963, par Gilberte AIGRISSE Évidence et ambiguïtés du néo-colonialisme, par G u y de B O S S C H E R E Jean Tortel ou les mots tels qu'ils sont, par Luc D E C A U N E S Le Camposanto, par Guy IMPERIALI Pensée et sensibilité contemporaines, par Léon L I T W I N S K I Réflexions, par Louis H A N N A E R T Synthèse du sixième congrès de la Fondation européenne de la culture,

par le professeur R . A . V A N G R O N I N G E N

Chroniques Chronique littéraire, par E . N O U L E T , Robert M O N T A L , Marie-Louise

G O F F I N , Fernand D u C A R M E et Freddy D E M E D I C I S

Note de lecture cinématographique, par Jacques B E L M A N S Chronique des arts, par Zoran M A R K U S Synthèses de la presse internationale, par D R A G O M A N .

Secrétaire de rédaction : Mn"> Christiane T H Y S 70, avenue J.-Fr. D e Becker, Bruxelles 15 Le numéro : 55 F B C C P 757.79 Sur demande, un numéro spécimen sera envoyé gratuitement.

Yearbook of international organizations 1962-1963

9th Edition, in English, 9 in. x 6i in., 1,562 pages. Price: U . S . $ 1 6

BACKGROUND

This indispensable reference b o o k in the field of international relations, governmental a n d non-governmental , is produced by the U n i o n of International Associations with the official collaboration of the United Nations Secretariat (Ecosoc Resolution 334 (XI) , 1950; United Nations D o c . E / 2 4 8 9 , 1953; United Nations D o c . E / 2 8 0 8 , 1955). Since 1954 it has appeared every second year, alternately in English and French; the last English edition, dated 1958-59, w a s completely sold out.

C O N T E N T S Number of organizations

I. U N I T E D N A T I O N S , SPECIALIZED A G E N C I E S 21

II. E U R O P E A N C O M M U N I T Y 7 Common Market business and professional groups 216

III. O T H E R INTERGOVERNMENTAL BODIES 142

IV. I N T E R N A T I O N A L N O N - G O V E R N M E N T A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N S , CLASSIFIED A C C O R D I N G T O FIELD OF AcnvrrY: Bibliography, Documentation, Press 41 Religion, Ethics 86 Social sciences, Humanistic studies 57 International relations 99 Politics 15 Law, Administration 42 Social welfare 64 Professions, Employers 76 Trade unions 54 Economics, Finance 30 Commerce, Industry 160 Agriculture 55 Transport, Travel 57 Technology 63 Science 92 Health 133 Education, Youth 71 Arts, Literature, Radio, Cinema, T V 57 Sport, Recreation 72

V . N A T I O N A L O R G A N I Z A T I O N S IN C O N S U L T A T I V E S T A T U S W I T H T H E U N I T E D N A T I O N S . . 12 I N D E X E S

Subject index (key-words) in English. 1,722 international organizations Index of initials (abbreviations). 2 ,200 addresses of organizations (international Geographical index to addresses. and regional) Subject index (key-word) in French. 10,500 n a m e s of officials

IL POLITICO Rivista trimestrale di scienze politiche diretta da Bruno Leoni

X X I X , N . 2 , G i u g n o 1964

V . Crisafulli Problematica della "libertà d'informazione" A . de Vita La statistica economica nel quadro delle scienze sociali

G . Borsa Nationalism and the beginning of modernisation in Eastern Asia Il nazionalismo e l'ingresso dell'Asia orientale nel m o n d o moderno

B . Leoni

J. M . V a n Der Kroef

Loritz-Porro J. S. Roucek

N . Grimaud et F . Le Pecq

R . Middleton and S. Putney

Note e discussioni

U n a teoria "neo-jeffersoniana" della funzione del potere giudiziario in una società democratica Malaysia's problems and prospects Problemi e prospettive della Malesia Indagini e interpretazioni sul Terzo Reich The changing geopolitical pattern along the Persian Gulf L'instabilità geopolitica nel golfo Persico Cheminement constitutionnel et premières élections légis­latives marocaines Influences on the political beliefs of American college students: A study of self appraisals Le fedi politiche degli studenti americani

Attività degli istituti Recensioni e segnalazioni

Subscriptions for 1964 (four tauet): $6 + $1 (postage) Send orders to: Istituto di scienze politiche, Università di Pavia (Pavia - Italy)

Biology and H u m a n Affairs A journal for teachers and social workers, designed to present an integrated approach to all the life sciences as they affect education, social welfare and human culture. Contributions are invited.

In the Autumn issue, 1964

Editorial Comment : Autumn Offerings Electric Fishes, by R . D . Keynes, M . A . , P h . D . , Sc .D . , F . R . S . Biology Teaching for Entrance to the Health Services, by J. T . Aitlcen, M . D . Some Educational Aspects of the Sickle-Cell Trait, by R . Jones The Cycle of Reproduction in Cats, by N . St. C . M e a d , M . R . C . V . S . Book Reviews

Biology and Human Affairs appears 3 times a year, in Spring, S u m m e r and Autumn. Annual subscription: 15/- ($2.50) post free.

Obtainable from: The British Social Biology Council, 69 Eccleston Square, London, S . W . I .

Bulletin of the atomic scientists

A magazine of science and public affairs

S o m e recent articles: The Case for British Nuclear Disarmament, by Bertrand Russell. The Mined Cities, by Leo Szilard. Science and World Advancement, by P. M . S. Blacken. Thoughts on B o m b Shelters, by Freeman J. Dyson. Future Develop­ments of Science, by Peter L . Kapitza. The Politics of Stra­tegy, by Eric Larrabee.

Send your subscription to: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dept. 1-2-1, 434 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago 5, Illinois.

Subscription rates: U . S . A . : 1 year, $ 6 ; 2 years, $11; 3 years, $15. Canada and Pan American Postal Union: 1 year, $6.50; 2 years, $12; 3 years, $16.50. All other countries: 1 year, $ 7 ; 2 years, $13; 3 years $17.50.

r-V

DIOGENE R E V U E I N T E R N A T I O N A L E D E S S C I E N C E S H U M A I N E S

Rédacteur en chef : Roger CAILLOIS

Sommaire du numéro 48 (octobre-décembre 1964)

Art et séduction

Origines historiques et destin littéraire de la négritude

Réflexions sur le théisme et Vathéisme

Les mystères de la reproduction et les limites de Vauto­matisme

Progrès pour mon peuple

Gustave E . von Grunebaum L'expérience du sacré et la conception de l'homme dans l'islam

Eduardo Gonzalez Lanuza

Albert Gérard

M a x Horkheimer

R a y m o n d Ruyer

Blanca Schmidt-Bajaña

B . Holas

Weston L a Barre

Arthur I. W a s k o w

Chroniques

Mythologies des origines en Afrique noire

Le complexe narcotique de l'Amérique autochtone

L'historien devant la guerre froide : un problème sans précédent

Changement de tarif Le numéro : 5,50 F. Abonnement annuel : France, 20 F; étranger, 25,50 F. Rédaction et administration : place de Fontenoy, Paris-7* (SUFfren 98-70). Revue trimestrielle paraissant en quatre langues : anglais, arabe, espagnol, français. L'édition française est publiée par la librairie Gallimard, 5, rue Sébastien-Bot tin, Paris-7*. Les abonnements sont souscrits auprès de cette maison (CCP 169-33 Paris).

M I N E R V A A Review of Science, Learning and Policy Volume II, Number 3, Spring 1964

ARTICLES The Crisis in the French Universities, by Raymond Aron The University of East Africa, by / . M. Hyslop From Scientific Idea to Practical Use, by A . P. Rowe Academic Ecology: on the Location of Institutions of Higher Education, by K. L . Stretch A German View of the Robbins Committee's Report, by Ludwig Raiser The Complexity of Scientific Choice: a Stocktaking, by Stephen Toulmin REPORTS AND DOCUMENTS Indian Science: Policy, Organisation and Practical Application The Educational Value of Science CORRESPONDENCE D. D . Karve, A. B. Shah, C. F. Carter, Alvin M. Weinberg, E. B. Worthington, D . Odhiambo CHRONICLE Single copy, 5s. or $1.

Annual subscription, £1 or $3.50 Minerva, 135 Oxford Street, London, W . l

C O U N C I L OF SCIENTIFIC A N D I N D U S T R I A L R E S E A R C H

C S I R Publications REPORTS AND SURVEYS Report of the Dyestuff Exploratory Committee Report on the Selection of a Site for the Location of a Rayon Factory in India

by D r . Lavgi Thoria

MISCELLANEOUS Adapted Processes for the Manufacture of Box Sides by B . M . Dass end S. N . Bote Adapted Processes for the Manufacture of Glazed Kid by B . M . Dass and J. C . D e b Austenitic Grain Size Control of Steel by B . R . Nijhawan and A . B . Chatterjee Cottonseed and Its Products by M . N . Krishnamurthi Directory of Collection of Micro-Organisms and List of Species Maintained in India Geological Time Index to Flora of the Upper Gangetlc Plain and of Adjacent Siwalik and Sub-

Himalayan Tracts Indian Graphite—Its Beneficlation and Uses by J. C . Ghosh, R . Banerjee and

M . R . Aswatha Narayana Indian Vegetable Oils as Fuels for Diesel Engines by ] . S. Aggarwal, H . D .

Choudbury, S. N . Mukerjee and Lai C . V e r m a n Ind'an Vegetable Oils as Lubricants in Internal Combustion Engines Manufacture and Application of Liquid Gold by A . R a m , Krimul'ah and Lai. C .

V e r m a n Patented Inventions of CSIR Patents for Inventions

Can be had from The Sales and Distribution Officer

Publications and Information Directorate, C S I R , Hillside Road. N e w Delhi-12.

Re. 1.00 2s. #0.36

Re. 1.00 2s. #0.30

Rs.2.00 Rs.2.00 Rs.3.00 Rs.2.00 Re. 1.00 Re.0.50

Rs.2.50

Re.1.00

Re. 1.00 Rs.4.00

Re.1.00 Rs.15.00 Rs.5.00

4s. 4*. 6s. 4s. 2s. Is.

Ss.

2s.

2s. 8s.

2s. 30s. 10s.

#0.60 #0.60 #1.00 #0.60 #0.30 #0.25

#0.75

#0.30

#0.30 #1.20

#0.30 #4.50 #1.50

A good way to keep informed about European and World Affairs is to read regularly

EU R O P A - A RC H IV Zeitschrift für internationale Politik Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Cornides

The Journal E U R O P A - A R C H I V , now in its 19th year of publication, contains articles and documents on international relations and a current chronology of world events as well as review articles and a bibliography oj recent publications.

Fred Luchsinger:

Willi Birkelbach:

L . P . Singh: Norbert Kohlhase: Anton Kolendic:

Gottfried Vetter: Joseph S. Roucek:

Articles in recent issues:

Deutsche Politik i m Rückblick. Eindrücke und Ansichten eines schweizerischen Beobachters.

D a s europäische Parlament und die Fortentwick­lung der europäischen Institutionen. Thailand in der internationalen Politik Zwischenbilanz der Genfer Welthandelskonferenz Die Beziehungen Jugoslawiens zu den sozialistischen Ländern Osteuropas

Passierscheine in Deutschland K a m b o d s c h a zwischen den Weltmächten

Annual subscription (24 issues): D M 65,- plus postage. Specimen copies on request.

DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FÜR AUSWÄRTIGE POLITIK, EUROPA-ARCHIV,

Vertrieb, 6 Frankfurt a m Main, Grosse Eschenheimer Strasse 16-18

U N E S C O P U B L I C A T I O N S : N A T I O N A L D I S T R I B U T O R S

Afghanistan Albania Algeria

Argentina Australia

Austria Belgium

Bolivia

Brazil Bulgaria

Burma Cambodia

Canada Ceylon

Chile

China

Colombia

Congo Costa Rica

Cuba Cyprus

Czechoslovakia

Denmark Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador Ethiopia Finland France

French West Indies Germany (Fed. Rep.)

Ghana

Greece Guatemala

Haiti Honduras

Hong Kong Hungary

Iceland India

Indonesia Iran Iraq

Ireland Israel

Panuzai, Press Department, Royal Afghan Ministry of Education, K A B U L . N . Sh. Botimeve Nairn Frasheri, T I R A N A . Institut pédagogique national, 11, rue Zaatcha, A L O E R . Editorial Sudamericana S.A., Alsina 500, B U E N O S AIRES. Tradco Agencies, 109 Swanston St., G . P . O . Box 2324 V , M E L B O U R N E C.l (Victoria); United Nations Association of Australia, Victorian Division, 8th Floor, McEwan House, 343 Little Collins St., M E L B O U R N E C.l (Vic­toria). Verlag Georg Fromme & Co. , Spengergasse 39, Wien 5. Editions "Labor", 342 rue Royale, B R U X E L L E S 3; N . V . Standaard Boek-handel, Belgiëlei 151, A N T W E R P E N . For 'The Courier' and slides: Louis de Lannoy, • Le Courrier de l'Unesco*, 112, rue du Trône, B R U X E L L E S S. Librerìa Universitaria, Universidad San Francisco Xavier, apartado 212, S U C R E ; Libreria Banet, Loayza 118, casilla 1057, L A P A Z . Fundaçao Getülio Vargas, 186 praia de Botafogo, Río D E JANEIRO, O B Z C - 0 2 . Raznolznos, 1 Tzar Assen, SOFIA. Burma Translation Society, 361 Prome Road, R A N G O O N . Librairie Albert Portail, 14, avenue Boulloche, P H N O M - P E N H . The Queen's Printer, O T T A W A (Ont.). Lake House Bookshop, P . O . Box 244, Lady Lochore Building, 100 Parsons Road, C O L O M B O 2. Editorial Universitaria S.A., avenida B. O'Higgins 1058, casilla 10220, S A N T I A G O . For 'The Courier': Comisión Nacional de la Unesco en Chile, alameda B . O'Higgins 1611, 3.er piso, S A N T I A G O . The World Book C o . Ltd., 99 Chungking South Road, Section 1, T A I P E H (Taiwan/Formosa). Librería Buchholz Galería, avenida Jiménez de Quesada 8-40, B O G O T A ; Ediciones Tercer Mundo , apartado aéreo 4817, B O G O T A ; Comité Regional de la Unesco, Universidad Industrial de Santander, B U C A R A M A N O A ; Distri-libros Ltd., Pío Alfonso García, calle Don Sancho n.<™ 36-119 y 36-125, C A R T A G E N A ; J. Germán Rodríguez N . , oficina 201, Edificio Banco de Bogotá, apartado nacional 83, G I R A R D O T ; Escuela Interamericana de Bibliotecología, Universidad de Antioquia, M E D E L L I N ; Librería Univer­sitaria, Universidad Pedagógica de Colombia, T U N J A . La Librairie, Institut politique congolais, B.P. 2307, L É O P O L D V I L L E . Trejos Hermanos, S.A., apartado 1313, S A N JOSÉ. For 'The Courier': Carlos Valerin Sàenz& C o . Ltda., 'El Palacio de las Revistas', apartado 1294, S A N JOSÉ. Cubartimpex, apartado postal 6540, L A H A B A N A . Cyprus National Youth Council, P . O . Box 539, NICOSIA. S N T L , Spalena 51, P R A H A 1 (Permanent display) Zahranicni literatura, Bilkova 4, P R A H A 1. Ejnar Munksgaard Ltd., Prags Boulevard 47, K O B E N H A V N S. Librería Dominicana, Mercedes 49, apartado de correos 656, S A N T O D O M I N G O . Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Nùcleo del Guayas, Pedro Moncayo y 9 de Octubre, casilla de correo 3542, G U A Y A Q U I L . Librería Cultural Salvadoreña, S A N S A L V A D O R . International Press Agency, P . O . Box 120, A D D I S A B A B A . Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, 2 Keskuskatu, H E L S I N K I . Librairie de l'Unesco, place de Fontenoy, Paris-7«. C C P 12598-48. Librairie J. Bocage, rue Lavoir, B.P. 208, F O R T - D E - F R A N C E (Martinique). R . Oldenbourg Verlag, Unesco-Vertrieb für Deutschland, Rosenheimer Strasse 145, M Ü N C H E N 8. Methodist Book Depot Ltd., Atlantis House, Commercial Street, P . O . Box 100, C A P E C O A S T . Librairie H . Kauffmann, 28, rue du Stade, A T H È N E S . Comisión Nacional de la Unesco, 6fi Calle 9.27, zona 1, G U A T E M A L A . Librairie ' A la Caravelle', 36, rue Roux, B.P. 111, P O R T - A U - P R I N C E . Librería Cultura, apartado postal 568, T E G U C I G A L P A D . C . Swindon Book Co. , 64 Nathan Road, K O W L O O N . Kultura, P . O . Box 149, B U D A P E S T 62. Snaebjörn Jonsson & Co. , H . F . , Hafnarstraeti 9, R E Y K J A V I K . Orient Longmans Ltd.: 17 Chittaranjan Ave., C A L C U T T A 13; Nicol Road, Ballard Estate, B O M B A Y I ; Gunfoundry Road, H Y D E R A B A D 1 ; 36A Mount Road, M A D R A S 2; Kanson House, 1/24 Asaf Ali Road, N E W D E L H I 1. Sub-depots: Indian National Commission for Co-operation with Unesco, Ministry of Education, N E W D E L H I 3; Oxford Book and Stationery C o . , 17 Park Street, C A L C U T T A 16, and Scindia House, N E W D E L H I . P. N . Fadjar Bhakti, Djalan Nusantara 22, D J A K A R T A . Commission nationale iranienne pour l'Unesco, avenue du Musée, T E H E R A N . McKenzie's Bookshop, Al-Rashid Street, B A G H D A D . The National Press, 2 Wellington Road, Ballsbridge, D U B L I N . Blumstein's Bookstores, 35 Allenby Road and W Nahlat Benjamin Street, T E L A V I V .

Italy

Jamaica Japan

Jordan Kenya Korea

Lebanon

Liberia Libya

Liechtenstein Luxembourg Madagascar

Malaysia Malta

Mauritius Mexico

M o n a c o Morocco

Mozambique Netherlands

Netherlands Antilles N e w Caledonia

N e w Zealand

Nicaragua

Nigeria N o r w a y

Pakistan

Paraguay

Peru Philippines

Poland

Portugal Puerto Rico

Rumania Senegal

Singapore South Africa

Southern Rhodesia Spain

Sudan Sweden

Switzerland Syria

Tanganyika Thailand

Turkey Uganda

U . S . S . R . United A r a b Republic

United Kingdom

United States of America

Libreria Commissionaria Sansoni S .p .A. , via L a m a r m o r a 4S, casella pos­tale 552, F I R E N Z E ; Libreria Internazionale Rizzoli, Galería Colonna, Largo Chigi, R O M A ; Libreria Zanichelli, Portici del Pavaglione, B O L O G N A ; Hoepli, via Ulrico Hoepli 5, M I L A N O ; Librairie française, piazza Castello 9, T O R I N O . Sangster's B o o k R o o m , 91 Harbour Street, K I N O S T O N . M a r uzen C o . Ltd., 6 Tori-Nichome, Nihonbashi, P . O . Box 605, Tokyo Central, T O K Y O . Joseph I. Bahous & Co., Dar-ul-Kutub, Salt Road, P . O . Box 66, A M M A N . ESA Bookshop, P . O . Box 30167, NAIROBI . Korean National Commission for Unesco, P . O . Box Central 64, S E O U L . Librairie Dar AI-Maref Liban, S.A.r.L., immeuble Esseily, 3e étage, place Riad El-Solh, B.P. 2320, B E Y R O U T H . Cole & Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P . O . Box 286, M O N R O V I A . Orient Bookshop, P . O . Box 255, TRIPOLI. Eurocan Trust Reg., P . O . B . 124, S C H A A N . Librarie Paul Brück, 22 Grand-Rue, L U X E M B O U R G . Commission nationale de la Républic malgache, Ministère de l'éducation nationale. T A N A N A N A R I V E . For 'The Courier': Service des œuvres post- et péri-scolaires, Ministère de l'éducation nationale, T A N A N A R I V E . Federal Publica tons Ltd., Times House, River Valley Road, S I N G A P O R E . Sapienza's Library, 26 Kingsway, V A L L E T T A . Nalanda Co. Ltd., 30 Bourbon Street, P O R T - L O U I S . Editorial Hermes, Iganacio Marisca 41, México D . F . British Library, 30, boulevard des Moulins, M O N T E - C A R L O . Librairie "Aux belles images'*, 281, avenue M o h a m m e d V , R A B A T (CCP 47.69). For 'The Courier* (for teachers): Commission nationale marocaine pour rUnesco, 20, Zenkat Mourabitine, R A B A T (CCP 307.63). Salema and Car vaino Ltda., caixa postal 192, BEIRA. N . V . Martinus Nijhoff, Lange Voorhout 9, V G R A V E N H A G E . G . C . T. Van Dorp and Co. (Ned. Ant.) N . V . , W I L L E M S T A D (Curaçao, N . A . ) Reprex, avenue de la Victoire, Immeuble Painbouc, N O U M É A . Government Printing Office, 20 Molesworth Street (Private Bag), W E L L I N G ­T O N ; Government Bookshops: A U C K L A N D (P.O. Box 5344) ; C H R I S T C H U R C H (P.O. Box 1721); D U N E D I N (P.O. Box 1104). Libreria Cultural Nicaraguense, calle 15 de Septiembre y avenida Bolivar apartado n.° 807. M A N A O U A . C M S (Nigeria) Bookshops, P . O . Box 174, L A G O S . A . S . Bokhjornet, Lille Grensen 7, Oslo. For'The Courier*: A .S . Narvesens Litteraturjeneste, Stortingsgt,2, Postboks 115, O S L O . The West-Pak Publishing Co. Ltd., Unesco Publications House, P . O . Box 374, 56-N Gulberg Industrial Colony, L A H O R E . Agencia de Librerías de Salvador Nizza, Yegros, entre 25 de Mayo y Mcal. Estigarribia, A S U N C I Ó N ; Albo Industrial Comercial S.A., Sección Librería Oral. Diaz 327, A S U N C I Ó N . Distribuidora I N C A S.A., Emilio Altahus 460 Lince, L I M A . The Modern Book Co., 508 Riza Avenue, M A N I L A . Osrodek, Rozpowszechniania Wydaunictw Naukowych P A N , Palac Kultury i Nauki, W A R S Z A W A . Dias & Andra de Lda., Livraria Portugal, rua do Carmo 70, LISBOA. Spanish English Publications, Eleanor Roosevelt 115, apartado 1912, H A T O R E Y . Cartimex, Str. Aristide Briand 14-18, P . O . Box 134-135, B U C U R E S T I . L a Maison du livre, 13, avenue R o u m e , D A K A R . See Malaysia. V a n Schaik's Bookstore (Pty) Ltd., Libri Building, Church Street, P . O . Box 724, P R E T O R I A . The Book Centre, Gordon Avenue, S A L I S B U R Y . Librería Científica Medinaceli, D u q u e de Medinaceli 4, M A D R I D 14. For 'The Courier*: Ediciones Iberoamericanas S . A . , calle de Onate 15, M A D R I D . AI Bashlr Bookshop, P.O. Box 1118, K H A R T O U M . A/B C. E. Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel, Fredsgatan 2, STOCKHOLM 16. For 'The Courier*: Svenska Unescorädet, Vasagatan 15-17, S T O C K H O L M C . Europa Verlag, Rämistrasse 5, Z Ü R I C H ; Payot, 40, rue du Marché, G E N È V E . Librairie internationale Avicenne, boite postale 2456, D A M A S . Dar es Salaam Bookshop, P . O . Box 9030, D A R ES S A L A A M . Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Avenue, B A N G K O K . Librairie Hachette, 469 Istiklal Caddesi, Beyoglu, I S T A N B U L . Uganda Bookshop, P . O . Box 145, K A M P A L A . Meïh duna rod naia Kniga, M O S K V A G-200. Librairie Kasr El Nil, 38, m e Kasr El Nil, C A I R O . Sub-depot: La Renaissance d'Egypte, 9 Sh. Adly Pasha, C A I R O (Egypt). H . M . Stationery Office, P . O . Box 569, London, S.E.I. Government book­shops: London, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester. Unesco Publications Center (NAIP), 317 East 34th St., N E W Y O R K , N . Y . i00\6 and except for periodicals: Columbia University Press, 2960 Broad­way, N E W Y O R K 27, N . Y .

Uruguay Representación de Editoriales, plaza Cagancha 1342, l.er piso, M O N T E ­VIDEO.

Venezuela LibreríaPolitécnica, calle Villaflor, local A , al lado General Electric, Sabana Grande, C A R A C A S ; Librería Cruz del Sur, Centro Comercial del Este, local 11, apartado 10223, Sabana Grande, C A R A C A S ; Oficina Publicaciones de la Unesco, Gobernador a Candilito n.° 37, apartado postal n.° 8092, C A R A C A S ; Libreria Selecta, avenida 3, n.° 23-23, M É R I D A .

Viet-Nam Librairie-papeterie Xuân-Thu, 185-193 rue Tu-Do , B.P. 283, S A I G O N . Yugoslavia Jugoslovenska Knjiga, Terazije 27, B E O O R A D .

U N E S C O B O O K C O U P O N S

Unesco Book Coupons can be used to purchase all books and periodicals of an educational, scientific or cultural character. For full information please write to: Unesco Coupon Office, place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e, France.

68