Carl Darton

You and Science

A British Scientist on Science and Socialism

From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 26, 26 June 1950, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

Science today is almost as successful and honored as success itself. And yet science is most obviously being perverted by political forces to accelerate the degradation and destruction of civilization. It is to be expected, therefore, that some scientists who are driven to politics by the subversion of science will find the theoretical aspects of socialism inviting.

An English biologist, C.H. Waddington, in The Scientific Attitude (Pelican Books) points out the similarities of science and socialism. His observations, in part, follow:

“It [socialism] too [as well as science] knows that it has never discover the whole truth, and that each individual can only hope by his efforts to came a little nearer than his predecessors to a full comprehension of the processes he is studying; it, too, is a method of approach, and not a final body of hard and fast doctrine.”
“In its second most important point Marxism is also in perfect agreement with science. It is a materialist philosophy ... It means merely that there is a world of stubborn reality which we can investigate and which can be changed by our actions, but not only by our thoughts alone.”
“The next point in Marxist thought is not merely in agreement with orthodox scientific views, but is, I think, in advance of them and states clearly and definitely an idea which science is just beginning to recognize. Everything in this world, this part of Marxism states, is essentially and necessarily changing and developing.

Over a century ago Marx and Engels perceived that science had built a firm foundation to support the warm-hearted desires for equality, peace, freedom and plenty. During the past 100 years scientific investigation has widened and deepened these foundations. Theoretical and applied physical science has increased the productive level so that an economy of abundance, such as socialism, couldfexist in much of the world tomorrow if the political control of the privileged few were swept away.

Science Has Laid the Basis

Moreover, biological and social sciences have increased the understanding of human behavior of the individual as well as his statistical aggregate. Critics of socialism like to point out that production has continued to increase despite Marx’s prophecies of the collapse of capitalism and the revolt of the proletariat. One wonders if the same critics would admit also that the destruction of wars, the waste of unemployment, fratricide, suffering and frustration of the human race over the century has greatly exceeded the worst fears of the founders of Marxism.

Science has also substantiated the international brotherhood of man by showing the physiological, psychological and sociological similarities of all people. In most significant aspects the individual or intragroup differences are of much greater importance than iriter-group variances. Any supposed “natural” basis for racism and discrimination has been disproved by scientific inquiry.

In yet another way science has laid the basis for socialism by making available sufficient time not only for leisure but also for participation in politics. Efforts toward collectivism have clearly shown that one of the most important tasks of socialist planning is the involvement of each individual info the political life of the community. This will mean setting aside sufficient time in the shops and offices for democratic industrial government by the workers themselves. And similar arrangements outside the shops must be provided for adequate consumer and community representation.

It is difficult in a few hundred words to describe fully the interrelations of science and socialism. It is true that science is concerned with more than establishing a rational basis for politics, and socialism is a political movement as well as a philosophy and an economic system. But it is necessary to answer again and again the capitalist propagandists who say that socialists proceed not by scientific means and conversely that scientists are by nature unsocial, or anti-socialist.

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