Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science

President's Annual Address: Science and Its ChallengeAuthor(s): J. Smith DeckerSource: Journal of the Arizona Academy of Science, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Feb., 1963), pp. 95-97Published by: Arizona-Nevada Academy of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27641794 .

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PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS

SCIENCE AND ITS CHALLENGE

J. Smith Decker

Chemistry Department, Phoenix College

Because of my responsibilities as a teacher at

Phoenix College these past fourteen years with no funds to support travel, it will be impossible for me to present "A Visit to the Galapagos" as given by

Bill Woodin a year ago. Nor can I give an "Illus

trated Lecture Trip to India" as John Yellot did two

years ago. Neither can I give pictures of the "Archeo

logical Artifacts to be Inundated by the Waters of the Glen Canyon Dam" so ably presented by Ed

Danson in 1959. Neither have I been to Bankok to take pictures

of snails as well as other interesting live specimens, as Al Meade showed in 1958. Then

Allen Wager gave a speech in 1957 on the potential of the Arizona Academy of Science. I shall not try to further

prognosticate.

My thesis in presenting "Science and Its Challenge" to you today is simply to open our minds to the

potential that lies before us in Arizona. As teachers, research directors, traveling science institute lecturers, travelers in the interest of scientific endowments,

workers in established laboratories, directors of

graduate programs, or students on the ebb of dis

covery; our

purposes are in common, the discovery

and promulgation of truth. This is the challenge that the scientist has today, whether he is working in

Arizona, any other state in the Union, or any other

country in the world.

In order to recognize this truth the experimenter

or the director must have a background of informa

tion and intelligence to

recognize the truths that are

entailed. In our society today, this means a

person with formal training,

as well as the capacity

to

discipline his mind and his powers of investigation. In other words, he must be educated both in schol

astic achievement and by self discipline.

Someone has said that an educated person is a

"well rounded individual, sharpened to a

point."

May I quote from the National Education Associa tion ] our nal (1962) for a definition of an educated

man. "He is, of course, an energetic, persistant seeker

after knowledge. His quest is not one which ends

with formal schooling; it goes on for a lifetime. To be this kind of tireless seeker he must be intensely curious, broadly observant, able to

put himself

through the gruelling tests that acquaintance with

knowledge demands."

In this connection Allen Britton (NEAJ, 1962) has said, "The great disciplines

are not come by,

without discipline."

These concepts are not new to any of us, but in

my responsibility as president of the Arizona Academy of Science these past twelve months, I have become

convinced that individual effort without distraction is the most productive climate in which we challenge our potential for the discovery of truth.

Senator Neuberger (NEAJ, 1962) of Oregon has

said, "

. . . the well educated man learns 'to live

with himself, to be a constructive member of society, and to . . . create a better world.'

"

To re-emphasize the need for individual effort to meet this challenge, let me

quote from Arthur M.

Schlessinger in the Saturday Evening Post, Novem ber 1, 1958. "If we are to survive, we must have

ideas, wisdom, courage. These things are

rarely

produced in committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an indi vidual

confronting his own mind and conscience in

a room by himself." And may I add, with no radio or TV going full blast.

Dr. Joel Hildebrand, former president of the American Chemical Society and the recipient of the much coveted Priestley Medal, awarded annually by that organization, has spent about half of his time the

past few years attempting to

challenge present

day "Educators" to the task they should be, but are not adequately doing. He spoke brilliantly on this

topic at the Arizona College Association meeting in March 1957, held at the American Institute of For

eign Trade.

The Priestley Medalist Lecture for 1962, published in the Chemical and Engineering Neivs April 2, 1962, was an attempt by Dr. Hildebrand, to again present to the thinking public the views of this great scientist, as well as the views of the many state and

national committees on which he has served. He

recognizes that the United States must meet the

challenge of world communist domination and meets it head-on with the statement, "The prime require

ment for dealing with an opponent is intelligence." He

sharply criticizes the "togetherness" movement

of educational circles, which perpetuates offering

as

many as 317 so-called "education courses" not in

cluding psychology or sociology, at one of the insti tuions of higher learning

in California. In this same

college there were only 14 courses in

foreign lan

guages and 10 courses in physics. To quote "these

inflated offerings illustrate the Hildebrand Law, which asserts that the number of courses offered

by a

college

95

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96 JOURNAL OF THE ARIZONA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Vol. 2

department is inversely proportional to the intel lectual distinction of its faculty and the amount of basic knowledge in the field." He further rates the

"togetherness" movement by the statement, "Can

you imagine what Beethoven's symphonies would

sound like if he had been 'socialized' in a school which had insisted on teaching him 'acceptable ways of participating

as a member of the group'

?"

He also emphasized

the need of our schools, indus

try, government agencies and the general public to

encourage independent thinking on the part of stu

dents, rather than fostering the idea of group accept ance.

May I quote from him once more? "Instead

of 'adjusting' students to docile membership in what ever group they happen to find themselves, we should

equip them to cope with their environment, to wrestle

with difficulties, to adjust environment, not adjust to

it; to be able to stand alone if necessary, for what is right and true. It is a

poor education that does not

fit a man to be alone with himself."

I am sure that well educated men in all fields as well as scientists are meeting this challenge. May I

illustrate with examples of a few articles that have been brought to my attention in current literature as

well as in the newspapers. The space travels of

Commander Shephard, Colonel Grissom and Colonel Glenn are the most dramatic

examples of a scientific

and engineering team working together to

complete an objective of international scope.

Just last week it was announced that a Human

Growth Hormone had been isolated and experimental

ly tested that will revitalize the growth of dwarfed children by stimulating the pituitary gland. When this horomone can be made

synthetically in large amounts

its use or an opposition factor might make it possible to have all girls short and sweet, all good basketball

players seven feet tall, and all football tackles 260

pounds, and as fleet as 160 pound quarterbacks. This hormone wras not isolated by socializing.

Sometimes a good researcher becomes too enthusi

astic in stating in general terms the limiting factors of a

process, through his observations. One example

will suffice to illustrate this point. It took fifty years after the first report of a

naturally occurring alkyne

(acetylene) compound, before a general statement

by one

authority on natural

occurring compounds was restated to cover new observations. As late as

1930 it was thought that alkyns were too reactive to be present in living tissue. A report in the Janu ary 1962 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education states that investigators have found that "more than 115 naturally occurring alkynes have been isolated

and characterized." Also compounds with three and

four carbon atoms having double unsaturation bonds

between each carbon in the chain have been isolated. In this same article, William R. Roderick makes the statement, "Indeed, almost every review article on the newer classes of natural

products begins with a

Statement such as 'during the past

ten years, more

than . . . new members of this class of compounds

have been isolated, whereas prior to 1950 only

a few

(or none) were known.' "

This shows that research

activities are expanding almost as

rapidly as the

space age.

The painstaking work of the Curies in the late 1890's in which they systematically recrystallized the radioactive chemical from more than a ton of

pitch blende ore more than 1700 times in order to recover

a radium salt, is a classic example

of the persistence of the true scientist to pursue an

experiment to its

predicted conclusion. This same need for repetition

is recorded thousands of times in the history of scientific discovery.

A report by Jutta Dressler and Ralph Osper in the

Journal of Chemical Education, December 1961, tells how Dr. Oskar Dresse! and Richard Koke worked for years on the

chemistry of derivatives of naphtha

lene before their successful preparation of a com

pound to combat trypanosomes (a one-celled proto

zoan) which causes sleeping sickness. Their original

report reads as follows: "We prepared

more than 1000 ureas of the naphthalene series and had them tested. Finally in the autumn of 1917 we found the decisive

compound : the urea obtained from m-amino

benzoyl - m- amino - o -

toluyl -

l-naphthylamine-4,6,8-tri sulfonic acid. The action of this material on

trypano somes was

exceedingly greater as compared with all

other possible products." More recent

syntheses of a

similar nature have been prepared in the Salk and Sabin vaccines for polio. Such

compounds have been isolated and tested by dedicated research biochemists,

and it has not been accomplished by socializing. Scientific literature is replete with information

pertinent to recent concepts and

explanations, which should be at the fingertips of the alert teacher and the able researcher.

X-ray diffraction studies have

provided a new avenue for scientific personnel to show clearly by models the structure of both solids and liquids. Just one of the innumerable examples

which might be given is an article in the April 16, 1962, issue of the Chemical and Engineering News.

Dr. D. A. Zankelies of Chemstrand Research Center

suggests in this report that nylons and other crystal line

polymers have vacancies, as do other solids, of two different varieties. With a model depicting these vacancies he can account for the actual

density of such fiber, which is lower than the theoretical density.

This with many other recently proposed models made from a

variety of materials ranging from metals to

styrofoam, help the teacher, the fabricator, and the user of chemical and physical products to explain and understand the properties expected and required in

industry today.

This sketchy overview of a few current discov eries and precepts substantiates the

premise that an educated person must have a broad background of

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February 1963 decker ? science and its challenge 97

understanding in scientific fields to deal justly with new

developments in this modern scientific age. To

contribute to the broad spectrum of information now

being published he must

sharpen his experimenta tion into

specialized fields. Closer observation than

ever before must be made and explained in order to

clarify in more detail the structure of matter, its

actions and reactions.

The members of the Arizona Academy of Science

should foster and enlarge upon this philosophy of

independent, individual

disciplines for ourselves, our

associates and the potential scientists in our state. We

must volunteer with Dr. Leathers, as Traveling Sci

ence Institute lecturers. We must show interest and

concern in the Arizona State Science Talent Search.

We must visit and encourage local and regional science fairs, and actively engage in the affairs of

the Junior Academy of Science in the area in which we live.

Our challenge as scientists today is, that we remain

independent investigators. Our place

in society is to

continue as meticulous searchers into the unknown, as Dr. Adel so ably pointed out this morning. We should continue to broaden our base of understand

ing. We should support all scientific programs which

sharpen the focus of the young scientists who come

within our influence, and should oppose programs that will dilute the scientific challenge to the young, inquiring mind. In short, let us and our associates

be sharpened

to a point!

LITERATURE CITED

Dressel, Jutta and Ralph E. Oesper, Dec. 1961. The Dis

covery of Germanin by Oskar Dressel and Ridhard Kothe. Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 38:12, 620, 621.

Hildebrand, Joel H., Apr. 2, 1962. The Battle for Basic Education. Chemical and Engineering News, 106-111.

Roderick, William R., Jan. 1962. Structural Variety of Natural Products. Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 39:L 2-11.

Schlessinger, Arthur M., Nov. 1958. Saturday Evening Post.

Zaukelies, D. A., Apr. 16, 1962. Model Explains Crystal Unity of Polymers. Chemical and Engineering News, 48, 49.

Apr. 1962. National Education Association Journal, 22-25.

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