Knowledge Is Beyond Price!

Of course many parts of science are immensely useful and rightly many scientific investigations are initiated by practical problems, but the fabric of knowledge is not complete until every strand is in place whether it is a practical strand or not. I am sure it was an Enzeder who formulated the uncontested idea that only projects for which a practical return could be achieved in a few years were of value. Knowledge is beyond price!

Another widespread misconception is that to teach a man what science is about requires deluging him with as many rather dull facts as possible. It has perhaps not occurred to such people that to linger over a few of the best pictures in a gallery is far better from the point of view of learning a little about art than dashing madly past every picture in the place. Such people argue that because only a few per cent of those who start in Stage I pass Stage III of a science subject that it doesn't matter. What rot! It matters all the more in that such a short time is available to give most people the insight into what it is all about. Not to know what people like Newton and Einstein did is to be compared with not having heard of Shakespeare, Picasso or Beethoven.

Of course you realize that it is attitudes like this:

that science is really a bit dull;

that students are really a bit slow on the uptake,

that the solution of our problems isn't really in our own hands,

that the simplest way of cutting the teaching load if you can't get more staff isn't to simply cut the lectures and lab clauses to half,

that the problems we have in New Zealand are unique,

that you shouldn't speak your mind because Treasury mightn't like it and to ask for only a 20% increase, rather than an immediate 200% increase,

that timidity is preferable to intellectual aggressiveness,

that students are in fact apathetic as a result or hereditary factors,

that I suppose I'll have to teach it because it is traditional but God I hate it,

that it isn't possible to change the system at all in a year,

that the most important words are "never," "impossible," "too expensive,"

that we should have lots of universities and D.S.I.R. departments spread widely all over the country,

that you can have this or that (never both) …

that make it difficult to induce scientists to come to New Zealand, drive others away (e.g., me), and almost suggests that only a miracle will ever alter the situation.

Well, all I can hope is that portions of this Irish stew have been digested and that you will see how in my mind words such as art, passion, socialism, inhibitions, love, aggressiveness, Imagination, data-gatherers, are a bit mixed up. Two things I wanted to talk about but didn't have time for—the unfortunate idea that science only progresses by logical methods and to wonder why so many people are ashamed of their hormones. So next time you see a nude man running down the street shouting, "Eureka! Eureka" don't laugh, but be sorry it's not you.